Starnerve One-Shots
by MASTER T-REX
Summary: 7th Chapter: Fear wakes up to a new day, every day, to see the star of HQ making Riley and all those around her happy. All he ever wanted was to be close to her, and every day, he comes to terms about just how lucky he is to be by her side. (Photo by StarNerve!)
1. Having A Nightmare

**Hey guys! New to the archive of Inside Out, but I loved the movie and after reading a lot of Fanfic's here, I liked the Joy and Fear pairing (plus they are really cute together), but I also liked some of the other stories here (but there was one that made my Disgust puke and my Anger rage over how horrible it was). However, while I do approve of the pairing, I don't want to put a problem so that they kiss it out at the end (it's good, but its too quick and makes me wish there was more impact leading up to it), so i want to try different displays of affection and actions.**

 **I also want to create a series of one-shots.** **This is one of them.**

 **The first few are mine, but I'm curious as to what you guys want to see, so leave a suggestion in the review!**

 **Without further ado, here it is.**

* * *

 ** _Having A Nightmare_**

* * *

This week was a long and stressful time for a certain girl named Riley.

After the fiasco of 'running away,' her parents did ground her for doing something so reckless, but it was to not only teach her a lesson, but because they loved her and would never want her to pull something like that ever again.

While she respected it, they took phone and laptop privileges away and made her spend more time with her parents as a way of healing and getting use to San Francisco.

But after getting back in routine with her parents during the weekend, going back to school was an even more tougher job when a few of her teachers would question her about what happened, but they were smart enough to not say it in front of the kids, or else she would be the center of attention.

And Riley didn't need that right now.

Having 'skipped' school when she did it, Riley now had more work to do and would have to sacrifice the weekend game to complete it all. It was completely unfair, but she needed to set things right after what she did.

After eating dinner and working late into the night, the 12-year-old closed her homework for the time being and went to bed. Thankfully, it was also Saturday tomorrow, so she had more time to do it. Riley was just so used to doing it then and there to get it out of the way.

After waiting for a while, when her eyes started to feel heavy, her mother came in to check up on her, but smiled in seeing how Riley is already in bed. Kissing Riley goodnight and sweet dreams, Ms. Anderson turned the light off and closed the door.

Soon, exhaustion from all the work consumed her, and her vision soon closed...

* * *

The emotions themselves, the ones in Riley's Mind, were having a long and stressful week themselves.

Dealing with being grounded, talking to teachers, getting more work, forced to miss hockey, and the fact that all the concentration made the console feel slightly hot, almost due to the fact that Riley was about to have a headache if she stayed up any later doing homework.

It was Fear who stopped Riley, for he didn't want her to have trouble sleeping or else they all would be forced to stay up.

At the helm, Joy was also tired, exhausted by how much she had to help Riley catch up on. Her hands and arms have been aching from the repeated pressing of buttons, twisting of knobs, and the pulling and pushing of levers to do the work. Some memories helped ease the push to do the work, but it didn't soften the blow.

After finally seeing Riley go into REM, Joy gave a relieving and exhausted sigh as she turned around to see her friends.

Sadness was with her to do the work too, for Riley had to feel slightly disappointed in herself to end up in this situation, but she quickly left for a Mind Manual around the subject of an overheated console (a.k.a. headaches and/or migraines) while sitting to a couch on the left and was looking at how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Disgust and Anger were talking to one another about the time at school. On Disgust's part, she was on the topic of how the other kids affected Riley and how she needed to make a friend or else she would be seen as a 'loner,' which will make it a permanent mark on Riley to never be willingly encountered by other kids. She took the helm during the school days to fix Riley's appearance and on how to approach people on a more social level.

On Angers part, it was extremely difficult to keep his frustrations inside. But it was the entire groups decision to keep Anger away from the console for the time being, seeing how making her angry wouldn't improve her situation. Anger would say that what Riley is going through and what he is going through is unfair. But after doing what he thought was right, he also knew he was wrong in the matter and needed a 'chill pill', as Disgust lightly put it. Still, Anger was still frustrated by the irony overall.

Fear, who was sitting on the couch on the right, looked just as tired as Joy. He has been keeping tabs on everything Riley is doing so that she can stay safe and slowly get out of the trouble she was in. Dealing with the punishment given by Riley's parents and the homework that she needed to do was talking its toll on the baggy-eyed nerve. In his hands, he held a cup of mint tea, his favorite, to reduce his stress so that he can sleep tonight.

Shaking her head, she decided that she'll take dream duty and said, "Alright! Riley's finally asleep! I got dream duty and will be sending the memories to long term. Get day today guys! Get some shut-eye, you all deserve it!"

When Joy pressed the step on the floor to send the memories they created to Long Term, Sadness looked up and said, "Joy, that's a bad idea. You look very tired from being at the console all day."

Joy, being the optimist of the group and being a little stubborn at times, smiled to Sadness and said, "I'm fine Sadness. Get some rest, okay? As soon as we're out of this mess with Riley, the sooner we can kick back a little bit and take it easy on the console."

Sadness looked unsure, but nodded and said, "Alright."

As she went to return the mind manual, Disgust said to Joy with Anger next to her, "We trust you, but don't go to hard on yourself. Let one of us know if you're too tired and we'll come down."

Anger crossed his arms and warned, "If I see you passed out, you won't be on dream duty for a while."

Joy dismissed him with a wave of her hand and said, "Thanks guys, but I'll be fine."

As they walked to their rooms, Joy turned to see Fear behind her, his cup almost empty.

Fear can be many things; scared, weak, sensitive, and maybe even cowardly, but his job was keeping Riley safe from all sorts of things, like being sleep deprived.

It didn't take a genius to see that Joy was suffering from the same symptoms. Fear saw Joy work all day, her arms hung loosely by her sides, her back was a little hunched, she had little bags under her eyes, and her glow was less dimmer than normal.

Of course, Fear could make her go to sleep, but not only did he not like telling people what to do (guiding is the preferred term he would use), but he was also afraid to let Joy continue on doing what she was doing.

Fear especially cared about Joy too, he just hasn't had to courage to say it. He cared about keeping Riley safe, but it was also his job to make Joy and the others be safe as well, for Riley's sake.

But Fear didn't have it in his heart to 'boss' her around, even if it was for her own good, because he cared about Riley and everyone else at HQ.

Why? Because he was afraid of the reaction. And being Fear, he was never 'courageous' enough to do something so out of character. Fear didn't get why people shorten words like those, calling them "o-o-c" or something, but that didn't matter.

So he made a decision. Fear smiled and said, "If you can't do it tonight, let me do it. Besides, Riley might have a boring dream after all we did today."

That did the trick, for Joy pulled a bright smile and gave a light-hearted laugh at Fear's joke. After getting a grip, she smiled and glowed brighter, and said, "Thanks Fear. I'll let you know if I can't pull through tonight."

Fear gave a nod in understanding, his antenna making a back-looped shape due to how tired he felt, and so he bid Joy goodnight and left.

Joy hopped to the console, which cooled down, and watched as music played and the dream began.

However, the dream was a lot more interesting than she thought.

Riley had a pencil as a sword and a big eraser as a shield, her body covered in paper armor that had notes of geometry all over it. Her quest was to climb Textbook Mountain to find the Scroll of Answers, the key to stopping the evil force known as Homework from melting the minds of children. She fought four-legged Pencil Sharpeners, giant Chairs with Desk shields and crossbows with pen arrows. Riley had slingshots with pebbles and spit straws to attack as well. She stormed through the infinite Hallway and had to evade the storm known as the Hall Monitor, needing to steal the Hall Pass as the key to escaping. Riley escaped drowning in the bathroom while fighting the 9-headed toilet paper Hydra. After solving Equation Riddles and drinking from the Healing Water Fountain was she ready to face the guarding dragon known as The Teacher that breaths Lectures Of Fire.

This was the most awesome movie Joy has seen in so long! She was certain this was going to be a big blockbuster on the Mind Reader tomorrow. Anger would scruff over it to the others, she can already imagine it.

But after some time, Joy's eyelids started feeling heavy, making it harder to concentrate on the dream, but soon she found herself slouching, then the entire world slowly went dark.

* * *

Slowly, Joy awoke to Riley being already awake.

She froze. Did she sleep during her dream? What did she miss? What did Riley do when she awoke? Where are the others?!

She didn't look at the monitor but instead turned around and searched their rooms, but she couldn't find them anywhere, only to go back down to see through the eyes of Riley.

Only did she realize that Riley was on a bus, trees passed by with no city in sight but highway.

Joy's heart started accreting to that of a humming bird. _How is this possible?!_ Joy thought as she panicked

She sprinted to the console and started pressing keys and knobs and levers to stop her, but Riley wasn't reacting to Joy.

Looking down, her heart got lodged in her throat.

The entire console was dark and broken, not responding to her commands, with a glowing lightbulb that was inside it's port.

Panicking, she pulled and twisted with all her might to make the bulb come off, but it wasn't working, like it was stuck with glue.

Becoming desperate, she ran to the shelves of the Mind Manuals, hoping to find an answer.

She searched, only to find that the shelves without Mind Manuals and covered in dust. the entire walls and flower gears were not purple but grey with no memories lining the walls.

Her heart started beating in her temple, panic setting in at the corners of her mind in all directions.

Then she only had one thought;

Widening her eyes, she shouted, "THE CORE MEMORIES!"

Running, she immediately pressed the pad on the floor and literally couldn't wait as she pulled it up, nearly breaking the gears.

She had a heart attack.

The core memories were completely faded. Joy could barely see the memories inside them.

As if exposed to the air, the core memories turned to dust, hitting Joy in all directions, covering her in grey matter.

Looking down at herself, covered in the remains of Riley's memories, she had trouble breathing as the world around her started feeling dizzy.

Joy felt nauseous. Like she was going to faint and puke at the same time.

Before she could fall, she ran to the slightly dust-covered windows and placed her hands on the glass as she looked outside.

The sky was dead grey, the memories in longterm had color, but were slightly faded from not being used. Joy didn't see any mind workers down there, no Train of Thought, no lights from Dream Productions, and no islands.

It was like Riley's Mind was shutting down.

Slowly, Joy began to realize that she must be the only one left in Riley's Mind. Where did all the mind workers go? Did the other's fade? Closing her eyes and leaning her back against the glass, Joy tried to get a grip, "This isn't real. This isn't right. It's only a dr-"

The glass aged so much, it shattered under Joy's weight, making her eyes widen as she tripped outside into the air...

...and shrieked as she fell into the dump.

After what seemed like an eternity of falling into darkness, just like before, did she hit the ground hard.

Only it wasn't the ground, but the still fading memories of Riley's past, her happy giggles and cheers echoing the dump endlessly as they turn to dust.

Hurt all over and pain flaring as she moved, Joy got up and then looked up, seeing how the only light in this dark abyss was the grey sky and her very glow.

Joy realized, then and there...

...that she was alone...

...Riley has forgotten her once more...

...Her hands felt weird and so Joy looked down at them...

...And saw her glow began to dim...

...Her sunshine skin began to turn dull and grey...

...Her body felt tired and aching...

...Joy panicked as she felt her hair thin and fall to lie down instead of standing upright, turning an ashy white...

...Her bright green dress began to dull into a more hollow color...

...And her vision started blurring, making the light harder to see-

Suddenly, something grabbed and wrapped around her feet, deep under the decaying memories.

And it was a pink trunk.

The instant she saw it, it began to drag her down under the decaying orbs. Adrenaline began to kick in as she kept yelling "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!" while kicking to escape and clawing at the memories to get a grip, but the nose was dragging her deep into the fading orbs as her fingers simply glided across the dead spheres like water.

Her entire body began to hurt from the pressure of orbs crushing her sides, squeezing her like it was trying to eat her.

Before she could be fully submerged was when she heard cracking, then seeing HQ, her home, come tumbling down into the dump.

Joy could only let out one more scream as the complex came crashing down on her-

* * *

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Joy screamed as she bolted upright, heart thudding against her chest like a drum, breathing heavily and feeling hot all over.

After a moment of shock, she slowly began to take it in that she was still in HQ.

She was still at home.

Not in the dump.

And Riley was still asleep, the dream having been turned off long ago. There was no grayness to the walls, no blackened console, no glowing lightbulb; everything was as it was.

Realizing that it was all a dream, a terrible nightmare, did she close her eyes and put her hands in her face, feeling like she was about to cry from seeing such horror.

After getting a grip, she knew that she shouldn't have taken dream duty and slept in her room. If only she listened to the others than she wouldn't be in this situ-

"You okay?"

"AHH!" Joy screamed again, grabbing a pillow and then quickly hitting something with her eyes closed.

At the rough impact, Joy heard a loud 'ouf' and then heard a falling 'thud'.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and got up, using a pillow to protect herself like a weapon, and then went around the couch to realize that she knocked someone out.

* * *

At first, it was complete darkness, but then the light seeped in, and so he felt an ice pack against the side of his face as he slowly became conscious again.

He then heard the voice of Joy say to his right, "I am soooo sorry I knocked you out."

Joy watched with a worried look as Fear turned to face Joy, with he himself having to give a worried glance to Joy.

Before he did anything, he held the ice pack against himself, freeing Joy the duty to hold it, and asked, "You knocked me out?"

Then he realized what she said a moment ago as he said, "You knocked me out."

Looking at her out of fright, Fear asked, "Why did you knock me out?"

Joy gave a light blush at how embarrassing this was; Joy _attacked_ Fear in fright. And now he has a bruise on the side of his face.

She began, "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to do it, I was just startled."

Fear looked to her and gave an sympathetic look, knowing what it was like to be startled, and then looked away due to the pain at the angle of his neck. After a minute of silence, letting the bruise slightly heal, Fear decided he should continue where he left off before his lights were knocked out.

"I heard you screaming. Did something happen?" Fear began

Joy was now really blushing, then she looked away in embarrassment. She realized that her scream must of woken him up.

But it made sense, considering his room was the closest to the rest of HQ, and checking up on her made him get injured.

Since Joy got herself and Fear in this situation, she looked down in embarrassment and shyly explained, "I had a nightmare."

Realizing what was with the scream, and knowing it wasn't the dream she **saw** , but the dream she **had** , Fear honestly didn't know how to approach this. Joy then looked away from Fear, hiding her face from his view.

When Fear had a nightmare, he would go back to sleep with his old teddy bear, or write it in his journal if it was that bad. But what disturbed him was seeing Joy, the happiest person he ever knew, looked shaken from having a nightmare and about to cry.

It's like saying Fear can be courageous enough to go to the Subconscious and beat up Jangles.

Taking a shot in the dark (even though he is afraid of it), Fear said, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

He saw Joy's shoulder's shake a little and gave a weak and almost unheard sob. Slowly, she turned around to see Fear, the comers of her eyes watered with tears.

Before he can react, she buried her face in his sweater and cried her heart out, making Fear look to her with wide eyes.

Joy was crying.

It was like his entire world shattered. He never saw- **no** -he would never **imagine** that Joy would cry, because she was always bubbly, happy, and very optimistic.

He didn't know that any emotion besides Sadness could feel sad at all by this.

But seeing how she was slightly affected by the nightmare, it sort of matched his 'field of experience' on how to handle this, even though this was also something he never did before.

Comforting was more of Sadness's job, but she wasn't here. So he slowly, but cautiously, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back and patting it like some parent soothing a child.

After a minute, Joy's sobs lowered as she got upright to see Fear and said, "It was horrible Fear. I was the only one in HQ, and..."

Joy told Fear every moment she experienced in that dream, which made Fear feel the same way. If he had that dream, he would of tired to make himself as small as possible and hide in some corner of his room.

But this was Joy, and for now, she needed Fear, because no one understood what being afraid is like more than him.

After hearing her dilemma, Joy looked like she was going to cry again.

Only this time, Joy saw Fear get a little closer and took out a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her.

Touched by how gentle he was treating her, she gratefully took it and wiped her eyes.

When she was done, Fear made her lie down on the couch, his lap to act like a pillow for her head.

Fear felt uneasy but it also felt right. It was a strange feeling, but being unknown to it, he was naturally afraid of it.

And at the same time, he wasn't.

And he liked it.

And most importantly, he liked sharing it with Joy.

Fear placed his ice pack down and ran his cold hand through Joy's hair to soothe her, and he felt her begin to relax under his touch, her shaking breath turned into steady breathing and she relaxingly closed her eyes, focusing and enjoying the sensation.

Fear began, "I'm sorry that you had that dream. I would of been scared if I had the same one too."

Fear then removed his hand from her hair and snaked it into her own hand and gave it a squeeze in comfort. Joy smiled and squeezed it back.

Fear then said soothingly, "I'll be right here. I'm not gonna go anywhere until you feel better."

Fear eyes sparked over the reflection of Joy's ever-brighter glow at Fears words. It was like Joy was a bright star, a sun, to warm Fear's over-beating heart. Joy herself felt her heart flutter at how gentle he was treating her; Joy was also impressed, for she never saw this side of him, being a true gentlemen.

With his other hand, Joy enjoyed the comforting sensation of Fear running his hand through her hair once more and the warmth of Fear legs as a pillow, making the position she was in more comfy.

The nightmare Joy had left her mind like water as sleep came again, this time with the presence of someone she cared about.

* * *

The first thing Joy felt was warmth surrounding her entire body.

It was pleasant, like she was in a cocoon. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the console, manned by Sadness, Disgust, and Anger. At the moment, they weren't interacting with Riley, for she had no reason to be disgusted, angry, or sad over eating her cereal, for her morning started off great.

Looking down, she realized that her blanket was wrapped under and around her, having been tucked in and around the edges of her body to keep her warm. The couch pillow replaced the legs of someone that helped her last night.

Sadness looked over and was the first to notice Joy get up with a very restful expression on her face as she got up from her blanket-wrapped warmth and stretched her arms and back, "Joy's awake."

Disgust turned around with Anger and said, "Finally! Joy, Riley had a nice morning and is eating her favorite cereal. She needs to feel happy right now."

Joy looked over and smiled, her glow a whole lot brighter, as they usually saw when it came to Riley.

But this was for a whole different reason.

Joy got out of her cocoon and basically hopped into the air with a beaming smile on her face, shouting, "Good morning everybody! What did I miss?", before landing next to the console and pressing a button, making Riley's mouthful of cereal turn into a small pleasant smile as she was supposed to feel happy with her morning. Plus her mom made her favorite cereal.

Seeing that Joy finally manned the console and having been caught up that Riley was having a great morning due to her dream, Disgust left to go to the bathroom, apparently needing to fix something with her makeup. Anger went to the couch, looking at the Mind Reader over the review of Riley's newest hit, "The Search For Answers", and was engrossed in the latest article. Sadness went to the back for the Mind Manual she was reading earlier, looking up on how to recent the console from heating up again.

Joy leaned against the console on her elbows, holding her face in her hands with a smile on her face, her focus fazed from reminiscing the event that happened last night.

Then a thought crossed her mind; Joy thought, _Where's Fe-_

"I see someones finally up."

Joy was a little startled, but had a small blush at seeing Fear with a smile on his face, a cup of coffee in hand. He eyes looked a little baggy, but he also looked rested enough to continue working. His bruise on the side of his face was barely noticeable, but because of his purple color, it was like it was never there.

Immediately, Joy hugged Him, careful of the coffee that was in his hand, and squeezed hard.

It was unexpected, but Fear immediately reacted to not spill the coffee on Joy, which was his first thought was for her sake rather than his own. Then he used one arm to hug back.

Joy pulled away, seeing Fear shake a little and give a small chuckle, saying afterwards, "When everyone else found you there, I told them that you were too tired to continue so you got me to come down. Just so you know, Anger now's gonna-"

What came next was unexpected.

Joy then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, interrupting him. She gave a small blush and a light giggle at Fears stupefied reaction and said, "Thank you for last night. I really appreciate it."

To say Fear's heart fluttered was an understatement. It felt like it was gonna fly out of his throat.

Yes, to Fear, her happiness was that contagious. Simply being in radius of her glow made you wanna smile.

Giving off a goofy smile himself, Fear stuttered, "Y-yeah, n-no problem at-all."

With a heartfelt smile, Joy tuned back to the monitor to see Riley put her empty bowl away and went on her laptop to finish the last of her homework.

Joy felt the presence of Fear next to her, ready to aid both Riley and Joy in any situation.

Joy realized that if she ever needed to cry, Sadness would be there with open arms.

If she felt unsure of what people thought, Disgust would always give advice.

If she ever got angry at how something is preventing from making Riley happy, Anger would be there with a chair at hand to slam the console.

And most importantly, if Joy ever felt scared, she knew she would always feel safe in Fears embrace and give comforting words.

Joy thought to herself, _It's weird how a little empathy can make you see people differently._

While Anger found her sleeping on the couch, he kept his word that Joy wasn't going to do Dream Duty anytime soon.

Joy was okay with that, for that mean't she get to spend more time with Fear.

And as long as Joy was next to Fear, she knew that she won't have any more nightmares.

* * *

 **That's it! Btw, the nightmare was simpler to the one in Toy Story 2 (Pixar references for the win!). Hope you liked it! Be sure to leave a review, subscribe to me through following/favoriting, and thanks for reading Fans!**

 **Till' next time!**


	2. Be My Nightlight

**Hey guys! Got a nice start on the first one, but while I got a lot of views and fav/follow's, I had only a few reviews. I don't mind, but I would like to know why you like it. I wanna know what you want to see and what I should improve on in the future. If I'm not doing a good enough job, just tell me and I'll stop the fic on a light note.**

 **More reviews on what to see and improve will make me post more (plus more motivation, everyone likes reviews!).**

 **But until then, this Train of Thought ain't stopping until it done with this particular short.**

* * *

 ** _Be My Nightlight_**

* * *

Joy, for the most definite part, was worried of a particular emotion in HQ.

But it wasn't just her, but Disgust and Sadness were also worried for their friend. Even Anger himself was as close to looking like he should step in and stop the madness. ( **Hehe, there's a joke in that sentence somewhere...** )

Who, of all the emotions, is acting reckless in the line of protecting Riley?

Well it's obvious as to who they were worried about. ( **You don't need to read this to know just who exactly.** )

Riley has been a lot more careful than usual, reacting on instinct and reaction to the normal dangers, but it also went overboard towards something as simple as a sharpened pencil, the edge of a magazine or class notes, and even the volume on the laptop and phone.

The proof was on the wall, outnumbering even the happy yellow memories lining the short-term memory shelves.

When Riley finally went to sleep, Fear was at the console with the others, but he had a more sullen look, like he wanted nothing more than to sleep. His cup of coffee, his 10th one today, kept him up but was threatening to make him crash.

The worst part, in which the others eventually noticed, was that Fear has been doing dream duty for three days straight.

It was completely out of the ordinary, and even though Fear was pulling through it, he kept denying that nothing was wrong when they began to ask if he was okay.

And many were beginning to wonder why Fear was pushing himself so much, for he was never like this. They knew that if something were to happen to Fear, they couldn't keep Riley safe, just like how Joy was gone and couldn't make Riley Happy.

Once the fourth night came, which was tonight, Anger decided that enough was enough.

He'd admit, Fear would always get on Anger's nerve, which is funny since Fear is easily depicted as the one who get's 'nerve-jumpy' in the group. But he knew that it was about time someone put a stop to this recklessness.

For safety purposes, Anger warned the female's of the group to go to bed while he dealt with Fear. Especially when he quoted that 'He can be **very** persuasive'.

When they left with uncertainty in their eyes, he ensured them that he won't do anything drastically.

The only reason Anger was doing this was because he represented what he believe is fair for Riley.

And he can see that what Fear is putting himself is unfair for Riley, for she needed to be safe.

And so Anger would fix it the only way he knew how; Direct confrontation.

With an irritated scowl and a deep growl in his gut, Anger stormed to an unsuspecting emotion just staring at the monitor, waiting for the dream to come on with his 11th cup of coffee.

"Ahem."

Startled, Fear yelped, but calmed down when he saw Anger, but he had his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed at him like he was a heat-seeking missile.

Fear has never felt more awake in these past few days under Anger's glare.

Anger wasn't a 'touchy-feely' emotion like the others. He always got down to business and to the point.

And that's what He did in a very unorthodox way.

Anger looked to him with sad eyes, something Fear has never seen before, and Anger said, "Fear, is something wrong with you? What do you think you're doing?"

Fear looked to him with worried eyes. Anger saw him with some jitters, his eyes very baggy from being somewhat sleep deprived.

Anger went up and snatched the hot coffee from his hands, Fear's only lifeline to staying awake, and questioned, "How much coffee did you even drink? You're jittering like your suffering from hypothermia."

Fear started to get worried. He couldn't be found out. He didn't want to go back.

He just needed to wait a few more days for it to get here.

Immedeatly, Anger had the suspicion that Fear was on something, but the only thing here was coffee.

Anger knew then and there that the jittery-worried nerve didn't have an explanation, and so he didn't have a reason or an excuse to stay on Dream Duty.

So there was one thing left to do.

Before Fear's very eyes, he watched as Anger dropped the cup, coffee spilling onto the ground.

Fear gasped loudly and shouted, "What are you doing?!" before trying to leap at the cup and save some from spilling.

But Anger was quicker.

He held the nerve by the neck in one hand with a grip that was like a bear trap. Fear couldn't move as the contents of the caffeine fully spilled on the floor.

Anger pulled Fear to his level, which is pretty low, and stated, "Fear, I'm only doing this for you once because what your doing to me and the rest of us is both unfair and dangerous to Riley. You been on Dream Duty for three nights now and you look like your gonna drown yourself in coffee to stay awake."

Anger then let Fear go, making him trip and land on the couch. Anger then pointed at at himself and him while saying with much seriousness, "As of right now, I'm on Dream Duty; And you are going to go to sleep, even if I have to drag you and tie you to the bed like some psycho in an asylum."

Fear looked to him with what could best describe his own name as he begged, "Anger please! Don't do this! I can't go to my room!"

Anger gave him a questionable look with one eyebrow up, seeing how Fear was finally spilling the beans. Anger then asked with arms crossed, "Tell me why and I'll consider you staying here with me."

Fear opened his mouth to say something to make him stay, but when the words came to mind, he quickly closed it.

The reason he stayed up would sound so ridiculous to Anger, so Fear decided to give in.

Getting up, Anger saw Fear give the look of defeat and said, "Fine; I'll go to bed."

With a surprised look on his face, Anger expected an explanation; Fear wasn't that hard to crack when he wanted to know something from him, but Fear accepted defeat like a man and slowly left as he went to his room.

While he didn't get the explanation he wanted, Anger succeeded in making Fear go to sleep. Anger had a smirk that said of 'a job well done,' but then he looked down and realized that he now had to clean the coffee up before it left a giant stain on the floor.

With the top of his head glowing yellow with flame and a deep growl of frustration, he brought the mug to the sink and left to go get a mop as a dream came up.

* * *

Fear entered his room and saw only darkness, until he opened his bedroom door more open.

He was scared of the dark, but with the hallway light on, it illuminated most of his room.

The first and only thing Fear did was go to the corner of his room.

As the back of his antenna began to loop downward in a sad manor and his bottom lip began to quiver in fright, he opened his drawer to look at the damaged object.

He picked the pieces up and looked more closely at the remains of the small plug-in socket, knowing it was pointless to try and fix it again.

The reason for all of his tired frustrations, large quantity of coffee consumed, and taking Dream Duty was all because of this little broken light.

In the middle of the night, the lightbulb's glass blew from it's casing and only managed to bounce of the wall it was on until it hit the ground. Fear was awoken by the sound of breaking glass and the never-ending darkness plaguing his view. Not only this, but he was afraid of getting up from bed in fear of stepping on one of the broken glass.

He didn't sleep that night, which mean't he didn't sleep for four days.

When Riley awoke, Fear cleaned up the glass and saw the damage it done.

Silently, Fear ordered for a replacement to the workers on the Train of Thought, but due to the order of a more custom look, it would take almost a week, 5 days if he was lucky, to get it.

And delaying the inevitable got his closest friends worried about him.

Even if he stayed in his room, he couldn't leave the door open, people could look inside and guess he needed the light to sleep. If he closed the door, he couldn't leave his normal lights on. No one does that when they sleep.

While he could of just ordered an ordinary replacement and waited for the custom one, he still couldn't sleep. However, this was no ordinary nightlight. This plug-in bulb was bright white and only bright enough to illuminate one part of a wall, making the room bright enough to see through and dark enough to sleep better.

The bulb was broken.

The casing had that of the bright North Star with 4 long points going vertical and horizontal, along with 4 other smaller points filling in the spaces between.

The case cracked from the glass, making the star look broken.

Fear has never felt so scared of waiting for something in his life, which is a first, but he knew now that time was something he should be afraid of.

Before he could put the broken nightlight away, Fear was startled by a concerned voice.

And a familiar glow.

"Are you okay Fear?"

Like the jumpy-nerve that he was, he shrieked and jumped, running in a random direction-

-only to hit a wall and fall back down to the ground.

As he laid on the ground with pain going through his head, he heard a giggle and the sound of light footsteps approaching him, then that same glow began to get closer.

Fear eventually got up and opened his eyes...

...To see Joy with a beautiful smile on her face. Her hair was still up as she was beginning to go to bed but she didn't have the same normal yellow-green dress that she usually wore. In it's place is a very thick but sightly loose dark blue nightgown with white flower patterns adoring her body as they hugged some of her curves. What made her look so beautiful in Fear's eyes was how that nightgown blended with her wide blue eyes and gleaming blue hair, but contrasted from her sunshine skin, giving the room a glow of both sun yellow and ocean blue.

Fear was baffled by what he saw. He did nothing but look with wide eyes and his antenna stand upright in a zig-zag fashion, mumbling to himself random words in a low voice out of simply being nervous.

Joy's smile turn into a face of worry as she asked, "The others and I overheard what happened between you and Anger. I didn't want to ask you this, but why have you been doing Dream Duty a lot? What's been bothering you?"

Fear immediately stopped muttering. His response would of been to deny it, to say that he was fine and that he was going to sleep, but the sympathetic look Joy gave him made that thought melt away. His next thought was to just tell her why. After all, this was Joy, not Anger or the others. He never saw a reason as to why he should tell Joy how he felt.

But he also couldn't tell how he felt in THAT way, even if she suspected and asked.

With sad eyes and a quivering lip, Fear grabbed the pieces that made his night light and placed them into Joy's hands.

With confused eyes, she looked at the pieces of the bulb and casing and then looked back to Fear.

Fear began, "I can't sleep without the nightlight. I ordered for a new one but it would take a few more days for it to come here. I've been on coffee and Dream Duty ever since to stay away from my room. Even if I stayed here, I still can't sleep in the dark."

Fear looked down as he explained this, thinking that Joy might see him as a 'big royal baby,' as Anger always putted it, afraid of everything and demanded to be protected from the littlest of things.

But instead, he was pulled into a comforting hug from Joy.

Joy said as Fear returned the embrace, "Aw, Fear. I'm sorry your nightlight broke."

Being the optimist, Joy was immediately trying to figure out how to fix Fear's darkness problem. She knew the others don't use a nightlight, and she doesn't know of any spares here. Plus, Joy knew Fear liked this type of nightlight.

Then Joy thought if she ever used a nightlight. But she never used one, for she always easily navigated through the dark because of her-

-then, like the white lightbulb in Fear's case, Joy's eyes sparkled with a very unique idea.

Letting go of Fear, she gave Fear a very clever smile, which somewhat worried Fear for what Joy might be thinking.

Joy told Fear something he wouldn't expect, "Get dressed and go to bed. Tell me when you're in it."

Fear's wide eyes told her just how afraid he was of that, but Joy assured that she will leave the door open to let him see what he was doing, but she will stay outside out of privacy and to make sure no one peeks inside.

Once Joy was outside was when she fully blushed by the idea that she had earlier. But she realized that she was willing to do this for Fear until he got a new nightlight.

But it wasn't just that.

She always wondered what it was like to be close to Fear, and so she was going to find out just how close she can get.

Just to see if her suspensions were right.

She silently hoped they were right.

Then, Joy heard Fear say that he was ready. Joy entered the room again to see Fear in blue pajamas, under his blankets. Joy could already see fatigue plague his eyes as he is ready to sleep.

Joy walked in soon after, getting close to Fear's bed.

Tired, Fear got up a little and looked lazily to where Joy was on the other side of the bed.

Only to snap out of it when Fear saw Joy pull the covers away on that side...

...and began to climb in, covering herself with Fear's shared blanket. Seeing how this bed was a queens size, it aided Joy's purpose to her idea.

Fear blushed red and stuttered with shock, "Wh-What ar-re you-do-"

Immediately, Joy placed a finger on Fear's lips, silencing him. But for that brief moment, Joy felt just how soft his lips were on her finger.

It was like lightly squeezing a marshmallow between her fingers.

Joy soothingly said to him in a sweet voice, "Shhhhhh. It's okay Fear. I'll be your nightlight."

This would of shocked him to the point where if he was just like Anger, his antenna would of caught lightning from the quick pulses in the nerves of his brain.

But a strange thought came to him...

 _...I'll be your nightlight..._

Fear saw Joy's glow in the darkness, reflecting the entire room partially with her bright aura of happiness. Seeing Joy do this for him made Fear give a rather relieving and thoughtful smile.

As if he was being guided, Joy placed her hand on his shoulder and slowly brought him down on the bed again, his gaze facing the ceiling, seeing the interplay of yellow and blue in his vision due to Joy's breathing.

After giving a quick kiss goodnight on the cheek, turning Fear to stone once more, Joy said to Fear in a very sweet voice, "Goodnight Fear."

Then she rolled around, her back facing him, with her head against the bed while neck-deep in his shared blanket.

On the outside, Joy could give away her situation as a small portion of the room suddenly had a slight reddish hue towards where she was facing. But on the inside, Joy was going back-flips, summer-salts, worm-wiggles, moon-walks, the Gangnam Style, that weird arm wiggle from that car commercial Riley saw, and every other dance move while singing every song she ever heard before in Riley's head. With a pleasant smile of content, she enjoyed the comfort of Fear's sheets, and was able to smell his scent in it as well.

Her senses were surrounded in Fear's musk, the smell of freshly-cleanned cotton blanket calmed her particles, and the feel of the silken bed sheets she was lying against almost made her hand want to run through its softness, and the particles that released her body heat made the bed feel more like a cocoon made of softness rather than an actual bed, which was actually more softer then her own bed.

The scent and warmth of the bed slowly stilled her mind as she began to close her eyes, waiting for sleep to overtake her.

It was a while before Joy could eventually feel sleep began to overtake her, but before she could sleep, she felt Fear get closer...

...and soon his arm was around her waist, holding her close to snuggling. Seeing how Joy didn't have a pillow for her head, Fear nudged his pillow under Joy's head so that both could feel comfortable. Fear said back in a low and grateful voice, "Goodnight Joy."

With Fear being this close to her, she nearly had a heart attack out of excitement and pure surprise by Fear's boldness to cuddle against her, but did nothing to stop him. She could tell that her face was hot and that she was glowing brighter, but that didn't stop her from being bold herself.

Joy nudged herself backwards until her back was flushed against Fear's chest, enjoying the feeling of being held by him in such a manner. His warmth made her sigh in content, enjoying how he embrace dyer in such a sensual manner, but she can feel his fast and nervous heart beat beating from his chest against her back. Fear, while nervous the whole time, saw how his boldness was being reciprocated, making him genuinely happy, so much that his fear of the darkness was lost to the glowing beauty in his arms, and it is that happiness that made Fear therefore wrap more of his arm and his other arm around her, bringing his face into her hair, subconsciously enjoying her scent as well.

And so, sleep began to overtake the two emotions in their embrace, one with a content smile on her face and the other with a goofy grin for being brave for the first time in his life.

* * *

The first thing Fear felt was the absence of warmth from a certain emotion.

Slowly, Fear opened his eyes to see a box in place of where Joy slept. And on top of it was a small note.

Fear picked his head up slightly and looked at the note that he took from the top of the box;

 _F,_

 _Didn't want to wake you up._

 _Got it for you early._

 _I have my ways, so don't ask._

 _X) -Joy_

 _P.S. - Personally added a few details you might like._

With wide eyes and a gaping expression, he looked to the box with much happiness.

He opened the box, which was already opened by Joy from earlier, and saw some of the styrofoam beans has already been removed to reveal his new nightlight.

It was exactly like the nightlight he had before it broke, but the star had blue swirls and decals on it that brought out the stars shape, almost like it was hand-made. The lightbulb was there too, but the outside of the glass had light tints of yellow and blue.

Fear couldn't stop smiling when he plugged it in and saw the mixture of yellow and blue light decorate his room.

After getting dressed and heading downstairs, he saw Sadness, Anger, and Disgust at the console, and he saw on the monitor that it was morning and that they were deciding if it's a good idea for Riley to start an Instagram account on her new iPhone that she got as a gift for good grades and due to their dad's business, **_Brang_** , becoming a success. Disgust was obviously winning the debate.

Before he made his presence known, he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he immediately smiled when he was face-to-face with Joy. In her hands was a familiar cup of coffee, his favorite, and so with a caring smile, she offered it as she said, "Good morning Fear."

Joy was immensely glad to see Fear have the biggest and most brightest smile on his face, one that impressed Joy, as he gratefully took the warm mug into his hands and said back caringly, "Good morning Joy."

With a smile, she suggested as she basically skipped towards the console, "C'mon. We were deciding if Riley should start an Instagram account on her new iPhone. Disgust may have won us over for the moment, but we need to be sure if it's _safe_ to do it. What do you think?"

With a roll of his eyes, Fear look forward to seeing what other dangers the others would get him and Riley into this time.

But while thinking over the topic of Instagram, a strange and heartwarming thought came to Fear.

And it is that no matter what happens to him, if he ever got lost again, Joy will always be his nightlight.

* * *

 **Put a lot of thought into this one and have been editing for errors this time. Please leave a review! The support means a lot to me!**

 **Plus, where do you want to take this Train of Thought next?**


	3. Over My Head

**A/N: Hey guys! Back with another short. Got a lot of great reviews and I hope to see more. What makes me a very unorthodox writer is as I write more shorts, I add more crazy elements as to 'mix' the story up a bit and make things interesting.**

 **Man I'm evil. XD**

 **I figured that the best way to get more** **reviewers...**

 **...is by responding to them!**

 **GOTTA GET A GRIP** **: Man, I love this guys name! It makes me wanna get a grip! And yes, I'm gonna 'keep delivering it' with more of a punch each time. I'm still gonna edit though.**

 **Laurean : Aw, thanks for the comments! But I don't think there is a beach inside Riley's head. Plus it doesn't make sense to put Joy in a bikini, she's glowing like the sun, it's impossible for her to get a tan! Interesting idea, but not ****relevant to what I'm looking for.**

 **Leafpool101 : Sounds like a skill I should learn in swimming class. Thanks for telling me that was your favorite part! I wanna know more of your favorite parts in the the future.**

 **Purple Duskywing : Thanks! And that's what I was going for! The gradual affection does make it more real! People should do this than rush it!**

 **TheOneAndOnly1993 : Sound's like that was an awesome year. Also, the shorts are not timeline based together. If they were, this would actually be a story put together. Great idea! I'll do that soon!**

 **Anonymous: Glad to hear that you like it overall! Also glad to hear that you love that short! Hmmm, interesting idea. I'll think about incorporating that.**

 **Now let's let the Train of Thought roll.**

* * *

 _ **Over My Head**_

Song Inspired Short By: The Fray

* * *

After the events of Riley running away, Riley has finally assimilated into San Francisco and soon turned 12 after a few months.

After finally joining a hockey team, and after a cute but embarrassing moment where her parents cheered her on with the teams gear and face paint, did she finally went to go join her team.

But before she could get into the rink, she bumped into someone, making the person's bottle hit the ground. Being nice, Riley leaned down and picked it up, apologizing to the person she knocked over as she tried to give back the bottle.

Only to see a blue-capped curly-haired boy stare at her like he turned to stone.

After an awkward moment, she simply handed the bottle back into his hand, and when she reached the rink, she looked back to see him look back too, but then she went to the rink.

In the end, Riley's team won the match and the coach invited the team to a pizza place that happily DIDN'T sell broccoli pizza.

But while she ate her favorite pizza slice, Riley couldn't stop thinking about that boy, like it lingered in her mind like an afterthought.

After that, her parents took her back home, taking off her gear and removing her smelly clothes, switching into something more comfortable.

Riley then stayed with her parents to watch a movie, but she still kept thinking about that boy...

* * *

...And Fear was terrified by what was going on in HQ.

Apparently, when Riley interacted with that boy, Joy wanted to be nice and pick the bottle up to hand it to him, but Fear was scared by who Riley was talking too, so he tried to stop her by making her nervous.

And after the game, did something not just out of the ordinary happened, but something extraordinary and remarkable occurred for the first time in HQ.

A memory came from the monitor. It was brighter than the other memories, but it was less bright than the core memories, which blinked bright than was a little bright and back to being bright again, but this memory was put into a small slot by the wall that only fitted one memory, which was locked inside with shatter-proof glass that made the windows of HQ and couldn't be removed.

And the memory was that of Riley bumping into that boy.

Most of the emotions were surprised by this, but Fear got scared and huddled in a corner, hugging his legs and rocking himself back and forth as a way to calm himself.

Sadness quickly left at the appropriate time to get one Mind Manual in accordance to 'Memory Management', and found something interesting.

Apparently, the memory Joy and Fear accidentally made is a Transparent Memory. This type of memory is only created under very rare circumstances where during an important point in a person's life, the act of two emotions not coordinating on an action without knowing about the actions of the other, such as how Joy acted appropriately to the situation and how Fear instinctively acted against that. But what made this a Transparent Memory was due to the fact that such actions can't be recognized as a normal memory or a core memory. Therefore, it is placed and locked in the wall with a monitor scanner, which displayed the memory on the monitor every so often, waiting for Riley to act how she felt about the memory, which means that it is based on the emotions decisions towards the memory. It also said that it would take some time before Riley could either accept it as a core memory or reject it as another normal memory and be sent to Long Term.

If it was rejected, then the emotions would of dodged a bullet.

But the question on every emotions mind was that if it ever does become a core memory, what island will it make?

Sadness went up to it and said with wonder, "This never happened before. It doesn't say exactly how long the waiting process is. What kind of Island do you think it will make?"

Disgust flicked her hair and said with frustration, "It doesn't matter. Riley has been acting weird ever since we left the hockey game and now that image keeps being posted on the monitor every few minutes. Riley just keeps thinking about him and its weird."

Anger's head was glowing yellow with magma, his teeth grinding together by his frustrations of the memory, saying, "This isn't fair! Why is Riley acting weird? She doesn't even know the boy! And the worst part is that we don't even know how to stop it!"

Joy, for the most part, was very concerned too, but based on what was said in the Mind Manual, she conceived herself and the others that they all had to work with this if they hope to either need it as a core memory or to move it to Long Term. It would take a group effort to make that decision, but since part of that memory was Joy's doing, she felt obligated to see its transformation through.

After everyone calmed down, they all directed their attention to Fear, who was still in a state of fright.

Anger grumbled, "Who's gonna go comfort the royal baby?"

Joy looked to him with irritation. After having realized how she treated Sadness, she made amends with her and accepted her role within the group. To see Anger say that about Fear, especially when he had every right to be afraid, was wrong and struck a nerve in Joy.

It may sound funny, but you get what I mean.

Quickly, Joy thought of an awesome comeback to support Fear.

With a smile, Joy said, "I heard Anger volunteer as tribute!"

Disgust and Sadness looked to him too, and all three emotions backed away as Anger gave them a dumbfounded look.

Joy also said, "Hey, you brought it up; You take care of him. And no physical stuff or you won't do Dream Duty anymore!"

Of course Anger got angry by this, but he soon calmed down, knowing he feel for the trap, and as he looked to Fear, Anger began to slowly move forward, unaware on how they expect him to approach the situation.

When Anger got close to Fear, he got on one knee and gently placed a large hand on Fear's small shoulder to comfort him, which Fear noticed, and Anger said as gently as he could, "Fear, it's okay. There's nothing to be afraid about; Sadness figured out what it is. You and Joy made a memory that we all need to decide if it's important or not, and none of us can do it without you being with us."

Fear looked to him, seeing Anger with a genuine expression of worry, actually caring about Fear.

Anger was only doing this because he was worried for Riley.

At least that's what he kept telling himself.

The females of the group smiled at the cute scene before them, knowing that it was very weird for Anger to actually care about how Fear felt.

Moved, Joy and Sadness notice Disgust moved forward, and eventually right next to Fear.

Anger and Fear noticed her too. Then Disgust sat down on her knees and placed her small nail-polished hand on Fear's other shoulder, giving Fear some level of comfort.

Disgust felt like saying something, so she said, "C'mon Fear. If you stayed huddled up in this corner, how are we suppose to keep Riley safe? We need your help to make sure that this memory wouldn't hurt Riley. And if we play this out right, then Riley wouldn't get hurt by whatever might happen."

Fear looked to Disgust with surprise, the same way he reacted to Anger on how caring she was.

Fear than felt another presence, and so he looked forward to see a certain blue emotion, her sad but sympathetic expression crossing her features.

With gentle hands, Sadness took Fear's hands and slowly helped him get back on his feet. Once he was on his feet, Sadness gave Fear a small smile, not needing words to comfort Fear.

Personally, Fear always wondered how Sadness can express how she felt without saying a single word, but Fear felt like he understood what Sadness was trying to convey to him.

After all four emotions walked back to the console, Joy took the moment to get close to Fear.

Noticing her presence, Fear thought about what she was going to say to him.

Instead, Joy placed her hands on his small red bow tie and made the ends stick out out more, then straightening it due to having been moved in Fear's position.

Fear blushed out of embarrassment. His tie was always straight and he took care of it like all the other things he had in his possession, but for Joy to fix it for him due to his clumsiness embarrassed him.

Once she was done a few seconds later, she gave that same beaming smile that can motivate anyone and said, "There. Good as new!"

Fear gave a smile, seeing how everyone was worried like him and tried to cheer him up first for Riley's sake made him grateful. So Fear said thankfully, "Thanks guys."

Once they enjoyed the moment, Sadness had to unfortunately interrupt it by saying, "The Mind Manual also said that we all have to input a certain level of cognitive production so that Riley can act for or against the memory. It's the only way for her to decide how she feels about it."

They all got into their respective positions and began to help Riley decide.

Joy was the first to respond; Riley felt like after seeing that boy, she remembered how weird it was for him to stare at her that way, but gave a small smile and inner giggle at how embarrassed and ridiculous his expression was. She felt like he was just nervous. Then she thought that she should be friends with him.

Sadness came second; After that thought, Riley felt a little disappointed by this, even a little sad, for how was she ever gonna see him again? She ran into him during the Saturday game. Either it was just coincidence or maybe he had a sister on team or something like that.

Fear immediately came third; But a strange thought came from that. Even if she saw him again, what would she do? What would she say? The boy was obviously a total stranger to her. And the worst part was what would her parents think if they saw her talking to him. She did not want to be in that worst-case scenario on what her parents, even her dad, would think.

Disgust came next; But then again, it made sense that he was a total stranger. Even if that didn't matter, she can't just go up to him in hockey gear, stinky and not impressive enough, and ask to be her friend after meeting once on accident, it would be the worst way to make an impression! Plus the weird stare that he gave her mad her feel slightly self-conscious about herself.

Anger came last with a reasonable response; Riley then felt frustrated by all the thoughts she had. Why was she even thinking about him right now? Why was he trapped in her thoughts? It was annoying her to the point where she should go to her room and hit the pillow out of complete frustration. Why is she even still-

"Riley, are you okay?" Riley's Mom asked

Riley snapped out of it and said, "What?"

Riley's Dad noticed this and said, "You're mother is asking if somethings bothering you?"

Riley didn't say anything at first, but then sighed said, "I'm fine. Just wondering if I still have any work leftover to do."

Her mom looked concerned and said, "You said you finished all your homework before the game today."

Riley looked surprised, but then said, "Oh. I did. Must of slipped my mind."

Both parents looked to each other, silently asking what their little girl was thinking, but neither knew the answer to that.

They decided to let it go for now, knowing that they can talk to Riley about it later.

After the movie ended, Riley said goodnight to her parents and went to her room to get ready for bed.

Once they kissed her goodnight, Riley slowly went to sleep...

* * *

...and the colors of all five emotion's cognitive production surrounded the hole that held the Transparent Memory, beginning to test if the memory would be accepted and turn into a Core Memory or rejected and be just another memory.

They done all they could for what they thought was right for Riley, but not it was up to Riley to decide how she felt about it.

Disgust rolled her eyes in relief and exhaled, "It's finally over. I hope they take it to long term so we don't have to deal with it anymore."

"I don't know," Sadness said afterward, "I wonder what Island it will make if it becomes a core memory."

After a while of talking, they sent the remaining memories down to Long Term. Joy volunteered to do Dream Duty since they all took turns before, and because Joy hasn't done it yet.

As they all went to their separate rooms, Joy looked to the empty monitor, thinking to herself about that boy. They all reacted in a way that best fitted what was best for Riley, but the way they did it made her wonder what Riley was feeling right now, but she couldn't figure it out.

Meanwhile, each emotion was getting ready for bed, and when they were, they all went to sleep.

Well, almost all of them.

After all, we all know who's still awake at this time.

And, not surprisingly, it was Fear.

But it wasn't about how the others felt about the memory or about the memory he made in general.

For it was the first ever mixed memory he ever made with Joy.

Fear freaked out because he made it with someone that he liked, and being afraid, he was fearful of Joy's reaction.

But it came as a surprise when the others soothed him, which truly made him fell like he was cared for and part of a family. But what calmed him was how sincere and calm Joy was about the situation, fixing his tie and complimenting him on how better he looked now.

But it made him doubt himself; if Joy saw this as just another mixed memory... then it mean't nothing to her how he...

Immediately, Fear shook his head, knowing that negativity wasn't gonna get him anywhere. He was personally working on not being 'fearful' of every scenario in his personal life, when not controlling Riley.

But a strange thought came to him; This meant something to him, but did it mean anything to Joy?

He suddenly had this question in his head, and he only knew one way to get the answer.

He went back to being scared again and huddled in a corner by the near thought of 'being brave'.

It was against everything that represented him.

After a few minutes, Fear got a grip and stood up, knowing that this thought will keep him up all night if he doesn't do something.

So he had the choice of staying and thinking what might be or go see for himself if it could possibly come true.

And, being afraid of which choice he made, he eventually decided on one.

Regardless, it was like he didn't have a choice in the matter anyway.

* * *

Joy was watching a weird movie.

The earth was burnt, and Riley was riding a very muscled and very meaning version of Rainbow Unicorn, who's rainbow hair was on fire.

On the hill ahead, there was a undead pirate and an robotic ninja riding a T-Rex. ( **XD** )

After being defeated, Riley woke up, but was this time going to fight a Space Emperor with laser swords.

After losing her forearm and being told that he was her father, Riley woke up in Titan armor with a giant hand cannon in one hand and flaming hammer with a steel eagle head in the other. In front of her was time-traveling teleporting machines protecting a weird black thing in the sky that moved like a beating heart. Then a weird tilting box with an eye said, "So, you think you can kill a god?"

Baffled by what is happening, Riley said, "Wait, what?!"

Then she took cover as fire lasers and void cannon shots were being fired at her.

Joy made a mental note to play **Destiny** less, to stop watching the abridged **Star Wars** trailer, to take a break from **9GAG** , and knew that watching **Inception** with Riley's mom and dad was a horrible decision. ( **I'm sorry, I had to! XDDD** )

While all the dreams were interesting in their own way, it got kind of boring for Joy to pay attention to, and she was started to get a little thirsty.

Joy got up and went around the couch, then she walked to that small 'break room' near the entrance to the hallway of their bedrooms.

She opened the fridge and leaned inside to take a bottle of water, then closed it and nearly bumped into someone.

Luckily, she noticed Fear and stopped before she did bump into him.

Surprised to see him still up, Joy gave a small smile and said, "Hey Fear. What are you doing up?"

At first, Fear had the simple idea of just telling her, but being fearful, his mind immediately went blank.

After a second of awkward staring, strangely like the boy they saw earlier, made Joy give a small giggle at the resemblance and said, "You thirsty? I got myself some water."

Wanting to get a conversation going, Fear immediately reacted and said, "Yes. Yes, I would like some."

Joy then proceeded to turn around and lean forward into the fridge to get another bottle.

Simply knowing the situation, he kept his eyes straight, knowing that he must NOT look down at the position Joy was in.

Thankfully, it was only a second before she came back up and handed him a bottle.

Giving him a weird look, Joy asked, "Are you okay Fear? Your blushing."

Fear didn't even know he was, surprise crossing his features for her to see, which also lead to another giggle from Joy. Immediately, he thought that Joy found out, but her features still showed that she was still clueless to what he was feeling.

Slowly, the gears in his head turned, and he sort of knew what to do now.

It was pointless to bail now. And if he did, it would be weird.

Giving a sigh, Fear said, "Can we sit by the couch? There's something I need to tell you."

On the outside, Joy gave a curious look and spoke as they walked to the monitor, "Sure. What do you wanna talk about?"

But on the inside, Joy's heart was sprinting. She wondered if her breath quickened, but she got herself to calm down.

Fear didn't say anything, but looked nervous. They sat down, but before Fear could begin, they began to see the scene morph to where she and her family didn't move to San Francisco, but instead moved to New York City.

It was obvious that the traffic, crowded places, and pollution made it hateful.

But that Imaginary Boyfriend was there as a tour guide when Riley and her parents were touring on that red bus.

While Riley drooled over him, Fear and Joy gave similar repulsed reactions by this.

Ignoring it for the moment, Joy got up, ready to pull the cords from Dream Productions to stop it. But Fear got up too and looked to Joy, which she noticed, and said, "Soooo... I was thinking... about... the... memory… from earlier."

Catching her attention, she stopped before she could even begin to pull the wire, and asked, "What about it?"

Fear didn't want to say it straightforward, so he said instead, "Well, for starters, I was thinking on how Riley was reacting to all of our responses."

This caught Joy by surprise; she was thinking about that too earlier, wondering how Riley was taking it as well.

Curious, Joy leaned in a little further, her body resting on one arm holding her up on the console and said, "You know, I was thinking that too. Basically EVERYONE was thinking about that. But I also thought on it being accepted as a core memory. I really want to see what kind of island it makes."

Fear had to fight the urge to be swooned and say _"Me too."_

Instead, Fear said with much shyness, "Well, I've given it some thought and I think... that the boy Riley met earlier... may have a... crush... on Riley. And the reason I think the memory's important right now and how we acted is because... I think... Riley... might have... a crush... on the boy too."

Not only did it make sense-well, it technically BLEW Joy's mind on how much it TOTALLY made sense-but Joy caught onto something... the way Fear was acting.

It was like she had suspected before. Seeing it now, it totally made sense.

So, being slightly shy herself, she played along to 'test the water,' looking down and playing with one of the buttons by tracing her finger around one as she replied, "You know... now that you mention it... it does make sense. I think that Riley does have a crush on that boy."

The way Fear saw how uncomfortable Joy looked made him immediately retreat saying that. He blew his chance by saying something he didn't want to say. To be straightforward now would make it even more awkward.

But then Fear notice Joy scoot a little closer, probably being a little over a foot away.

Fear didn't know what he was doing, but he went along with it and said, "You know... if I'm right-I mean... that the boy does have a crush on Riley... and if she ever found out... what would Riley say?"

Joy gave a light blush at replying, "I think... Riley would be surprised... a little scared even... but if what you said was right... that Riley has a crush on him... then I think... Riley would accept him."

At that point, Fear thought that he heard a secret message behind that statement.

Could it be...?

If it was, Fear would faint then and there.

Fear got a little bit more confident by scooting a little bit closer too, separating by half a foot from one another, and said, "You know... if Riley did do that... I think she and the boy would be great friends. Who knows... maybe it might... grow... into something..."

Joy looked to him, seeing Fear looked so nervous that he might go into a seizure, and with a confident but slightly shy smile, Joy faced him and said, "Now that I think about it... I believe... Riley would like that."

The realization of just how close the two emotions were rained lightly in their minds, but neither made a move to distance themselves.

After that, there was like gravity between them, a strange pulling sensation that wanted them to be even closer.

After they were a few inches away, before they could even act on what both were possibly thinking was going to happen-

-a familiar sound startled them.

Well, startled Fear.

He yelped with fright and jumped into the air, which Joy caught him in her arms, and Fear held onto her like a frightened child.

That sound came from the console.

The top was layered with bright yellow, but the base was tinted with bright purple. Both emotions realized that they must of pressed on the console to make it that way.

Then a loud sound came from the wall from the right of the console.

Both looked to see the Transparent Memory began to brightly glow into a Core Memory as all the colors of the cognitive production they did drain away into what made it a Core Memory. It then proceeded to be removed from the wall and went under the floor.

Fear immediately got out of Joy's arms, with the help of Joy, and they both hurried to see the next Core Memory be integrated into its new slot on the mechanical memory stand.

Both excitement and nervousness gripped Joy and Fear as they followed the bright beam that went outside. They looked out the windows to see the memory form a new Island.

It was right next to Friendship Island.

It's base was a bed of rose petals, then there was a overhanging white alter that had two roses growing at each end. Inside was a statue of a male and a female looking awkwardly at one another out of nervousness. There was also a water bottle and court food around it.

They looked to it in awe, having never seen something like this before.

Then, it left Fear's words before he could stop it.

"Love."

Joy looked to him with surprise, remembering that they were still close due to both looking through one window.

Fear, confident that it fitted very well, said, "That's what it should be called. Love Island."

Joy looked back to the island with a happy smile on her face, saying, "Love Island... It's perfect..."

Now Fear was the one who looked to Joy, who's pleased and happy expression graced her face.

Joy looked back to Fear as he spoke, "Joy, I-"

He was interrupted when Joy embraced him, surprising him.

"It's okay. I know." Joy said, her face blushing madly, "You told me while we were talking earlier."

Fear's thoughts crashed into one another.

 **She knows!**

As he was starting to get nervous, Joy looked up at him and said with a funny smile, "And in case you didn't noticed, I also gave my reply too."

Suddenly, Fear remembered what Joy said and how she acted during their 'talk'.

Fear froze.

Joy likes him too.

Before he could say anything, Joy finally took the chance to finally get close to Fear, the one thing she always wanted, and gave him a loving embrace as she placed her head on his shoulder while her arms encircled his back.

Fear's particles gave off the smell of fresh cotton. His clothes left like warm bed sheets that she could sleep on. Joy also listened to his thumping heartbeat.

But she heard it slow down as Fear slowly, but accordingly, wraps his arms around her as well. He placed his head on top of her own, listening to her sigh in content due to having finally hold him close in such a manner.

Fear could smell sunflowers and oranges in her hair. Her skin felt so soft against his hands that it was like hugging a pillow.

Realization on how he told Joy how he felt and how Joy liked him back in the same way suddenly made him feel proud of overcoming his fears for the first time.

He felt brave for the first time.

Both knew that they couldn't wait to show the others the island that they both made together. To both emotions, they once thought that they were going over their heads, nervous about the others reaction, but it turned out all right in the end.

* * *

Mr. Andersen was busy moving some stuff with his wife when he heard the doorbell ring.

Curious, he told his wife, "I got it."

After a short walk, he opened the door, only to see no one there.

Then he looked down.

He saw a young boy, with his back hoodie and blue cap with large curly brown hair sticking out, and the boy asked, "Is... Riley here?"

On the OUTSIDE, Riley's dad had a look of disbelief on his face.

On the INSIDE, all five emotions had the look of disbelief on their faces.

Immediately, Anger shouted, "RED ALERT!"

Fear pressed one of the big red emergency buttons, making headquarter's sirens blare red as it repeated in alert **"BOY!"** as all five emotions placed how they felt into Mr. Andersen.

* * *

 **AND IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, BUY 'INSIDE OUT' ON DVD BLU-RAY FOR THE SHORT 'RILEY'S FIRST DATE'. Not promoting, but you seriously got to see it! XD**

 **Leave a review when you get the chance!**


	4. The Green-Eyed Monster (Part 1)

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Sorry for the long wait (*humph* school), but due to all of your ideas, I had to forge them together and create a unique one-shot for this one, so please bear with me. A lot of people wanted to read something like this, so hopefully it pleases the crowd that reads them.**

 **The long wait consisted of creating a crazy idea, plot, and how 'things would play out'.**

 **Leafpool** **: Great to hear you liked this one. Interesting life choice, but hopefully it works out! Your idea is right here. (Since it's halloween, it's pretty funny its posted on this day).**

 **coconutcinnamon** **: Coconut and cinnamon? Huh, never thought of such a combination. Great that I caught your attention! I see you agree with me on how the affection is slow and gradual. YES! Someone commented on the nightmare! It was a Toy Story 2 easter egg (pixar references all around!). And if Joy actually had a dream like that, she would be terrified. Thank's for the suggestion, which if you read on, you'll see somewhat.**

 **Laurean** **: Glad you liked the latest chapter! Hmmm, I may have an idea on how to fit that. X)**

 **MoonLightShadowNight123** **: Poor boy indeed... But don't worry, Riley's dad likes him at the end of the short and approves of their friendship.**

 **Purple Duskywing** **: I like things that are sweet! And I also plan on making something sour too. Trust me, the dream made me double over as the idea came to me. Lowl, that's very funny. I myself am a hopeless romantic, and have suffered a bad relationship a few years ago, and I learn from this and incorporate them in my writing to relieve myself. Hope you like this one!**

 **GOTTA GET A GRIP** **: It's cool. Yup, my plan is unfolding. The blu-ray disk will be released soon. Saw the photo, couldn't stop laughing! Dreams are supposed to be surreal. Love does come from an island, and it took me a long time to make the island as abstract as all the others too! Wow, I'll fix that. Hmmm. Got a lot on my plate, but I'll be sure to write that soon (and the unpublished stories are not crap (even though I know that wasn't what you meant), they are pieces of literary art.**

 **And now, we're taking this Train of Thought into a little detour through the Subconcious...**

* * *

 _ **The Green-Eyed Monster**_

 _ **(Part 1)**_

* * *

To put it into perspective, being an emotion and working in HQ is no simple cake-walk.

To all the mind workers in Riley's head, it's one of the most chaotic, the most unpredictable, and the most dangerous place to be in.

Why?

Well, to put it lightly, it's the emotions in HQ that work there that can give a mind worker a migraine in minutes.

All the talking, cheering, arguing, shrieking, gagging, crying, and yelling makes you want to go back to the Train of Thought and never return to headquarters ever again.

And what's worse was the incidents that came in HQ.

Examples are what follows;

Accidently misplacing a memory almost caused the same type of memories to end up in one place, making Riley not feel that emotion anymore, but the mind workers stopped it in time and placed it back where it belonged. ( **KQSimply "Subconscious". My personal favorite** )

Riley suffered a small concussion during a hockey game and the mind workers had to manually reboot the core with the sent core memories to get Riley back up again while she slept it off at the hospital. ( **TheOrdinaryAuthor "Comatose"** )

Anger slightly broke the intercom when he tossed a chair out of frustration in not knowing how to answer a math question, and so the emotions had to stay silent and be forced to whisper until the mind workers came to fix it while Riley slept. ( **PotterPhantomKitten "Intercom"** )

That one time where one of the white-blood cells by the name of Mike accidentally bursted into HQ due to fighting one of the bacteria, and so the Mind Worker's helped it get back into the blood-stream ( **MCV4 "Inside Out: Immune System"** )

And other crazy situations. All while helping Riley grow up and experience life day in and day out.

But came next was worse than anything else.

 **To better explain that, let's start from the beginning.**

* * *

 **Boom! We're at the beginning. (See what I did there? XD)**

It all started when Riley was passing through class, it was the day before Halloween and the weekend, and Anger was helping her pass the time by placing day-dream bulbs.

Then, something caught Riley's attention, making Anger take away the day-dream bulb and made the other emotions pay attention to it too.

She started to overhear what the other girls were talking about.

They mentioned things like make-up, boys, ear piercings, wardrobe changes, tragic-vampire-romance books, and other girley things Riley wasn't interested in.

Basically, it was stuff that came after Puberdade.

Which is spanish for "Puberty" as Fear eventually figured out.

Sadly, they couldn't get the mind workers to fix that typo. It didn't matter though, for they knew what it said.

However, they don't know what it does.

So they all agreed to never press it until they knew.

But little did everyone else know, Sadness read the new stack of mind manuals that came with the delivery of the new console.

And she read something that she wanted to keep a secret until she had to tell the others. In truth, Sadness was scared of the day it would be pressed.

Anyway, back on track. The girls were now talking about this show they were watching after they finished talking about the Puberty stuff.

It had something to do with a Brazilian helicopter pilot.

To the emotion's, they didn't care about stuff like that, so Anger decided to put the day-dream bulb back into its socket.

Since Riley was daydreaming about random things, all the emotions went to the break room to grab something to nourish themselves.

Then, seeing how everyone was down and bored, Joy pulled out an accordion and started to play a catchy tune with a big smile on her face.

Until it too was interrupted...

...when a particular memory popped out of the tube...

...and the Triple-Dent Gum commercial decided to play its annoyingly catchy theme song...

...and out of instinct and complete hate, Anger grabbed Fear and said, "No hard feelings." before he threw the nerve like he was some sort of spear at the floating orb.

Screaming the entire time, he somehow came into contact with the memory and grabbed it while flailing in the air.

However, Fear's flight pattern came into contact with the corner of the console before falling down onto the ground in pain.

Joy was the first to act, which was completely out of instinct, as she dropped the instrument and ran to him while saying, "FEAR! Are you okay?"

Suddenly, sirens blared everywhere as the room was bathed in a red hue.

Fear said in pain, "My ears and body hurt so much!"

Disgust covered her ears, as did everyone else, and saw something that made her gasp in horror.

The 'Puberdade' button was pressed.

Disgust turned to Anger, who had his ears covered too, and yelled, "Why did you press the button!?"

"WHAT?!" Anger yelled over the loud sirens with hands covering his ears.

Disgust yelled and pointed to the button with one hand, "I SAID WHY DID YOU PRE-"

Disgust was interrupted when the sirens stopped and the rooms were no longer red in alert.

The sound was then of Sadness, laying on the floor face first, crying her eyes out in horror.

Before anyone could question why Sadness was crying, they suddenly heard a voice.

A different voice, one they never heard of before.

Off in the corner, they heard the voice say to itself tiredly, "Fixed that. Now to deal with them."

They turned to see something truly shocking.

There was a new emotion in HQ. She was tall and had a slender figure, similar to that of Joy's hight and shape. Her color was a light blue that gave off a slightly glowing appeal, like the kind of blue that would jump out at you and you wouldn't never see it coming. Her grey hair was down but slightly spiky as some of her hair was out of place, like getting bed hair that actually looked good on you. Her matching grey eyes looked like they would leap out at you to startle you. Her expression however held that of 'why-do-I-have-to-deal-with-this-when-I-have-better-things-to-do?' Her appeal was that of a dark blue hoodie with skinny jeans and black flat sneakers.

She somewhat looked like one of those people that would always try to be your friend then always catch you off guard.

And what people are calling these days, slightly 'Hipster'.

After a roll of her eyes, she said, "Just staring at me isn't going to fix our problem! Who pressed the puberty button?!"

Anger, who got slightly pissed off by her words, said back, "Who are you?!"

A look of surprise crossed her features, which somehow fitted perfectly with her clothes and looks and everything else. She then introduced herself by saying, "I'm Surprise. By the fact that you asked me first, I'm guessing you were the one who pressed the button?"

Before Anger could give another retort, Disgust immediately crossed Anger by interrupting and saying, "Yeah, he was the one who pressed the button. Why are you here? Where did you come from?"

Surprise looked up and said, "I'll tell you later. But right now, if none of you don't answer the teachers questions, you're getting detention later today."

All five emotions snapped their necks to the monitor, seeing the Teacher constantly trying to get Riley's attention.

Joy immediately pulled out the lightbulb that held the daydream and quickly responded to the teacher.

While Riley narrowly avoided going into detention, she was the social laughing stock of the school for the day by the other students.

Which made Anger 'angry' and Disgust frustrated.

* * *

With Riley eating dinner and avoiding the topic of school, saying how nothing interesting happened, Anger continue to rant, "If only Surprise didn't come here, none of us wouldn't have been distracted! It's all HER fault we almost got in trouble!"

Disgust gave a huff on the matter and said, "And now were the laughing stock of the entire school! I nearly chipped a nail in trying to avoid all that!"

"I'm right here." Surprise said with much annoyance in the distance, who was looking at a certain Mind Manual and continued, "Also, I'm suppose to be here at this stage of Riley's life."

Disgust looked to her and suddenly realized with wide eyes, "The button."

Disgust then proceeded to smack Anger upside the head.

"OW! What was that for?!" Anger yelled

Disgust said, "If you never threw Fear at that orb, that stupid red button wouldn't have been pressed and she wouldn't be here!"

Joy watched her two friends argue on the matter at hand. But she thought to herself on how is it that there is a 6th emotion? Why wasn't she with them from the beginning? And for her to 'pop out of the blue' so suddenly, why is it that she's needed now at this point in Riley's life?

Joy knew the answer was in knowing what exactly was the Puberty button did to Riley.

And the information behind that was in a Mind Manual.

Joy then figured that Sadness might-

Suddenly, it hit Joy like lightning.

It made sense why Sadness was crying earlier.

And it wasn't just because of what happened.

Joy then suspected that maybe it was because Sadness knew what would happen if the button was pressed this whole time.

Seeing Surprise in the corner with the Mind Manuals and Anger was busy yelling at Disgust, Joy walked towards the couches where her other two friends were.

Sadness sat next to Fear, who he himself was slightly injured and held an ice pack to his side.

Once Joy got close, she asked Sadness, "Sadness... Did you... know... what exactly... the Puberty button does?"

Fear looked to Sadness with much shock, surprised himself, and asked, "Wait, you know what it does? Why didn't you tell us?"

Sadness looked to Fear, and then to Joy, and her lower lip began to quiver as her eyes began to tear up.

Before both emotions could register what was about to happen, Sadness began to fall down onto the couch, her face in the cushions, and gave muffled sobs.

Joy moved forward and sat between Fear and Sadness, then laid her hand into Sadness hair to sooth her. Fear looked to the two emotions with much sympathy.

Fear was so enveloped in the moment and Joy was too focused on calming Sadness that they didn't notice someone right next to them.

"So-"

"AHH!" Fear screamed and literary jumped off the couch and took cover behind it quickly, only to realize that it was Surprise.

After that pause, they saw Surprise looking at her nails and her arm holding her body up from lying against the couch. After giving a quick glance to the three purposefully-startled emotions, Surprise got upright and continued, "So I know that you may have questions, but I'm just gonna give you the short story until later; I wasn't needed because there wasn't anything for Riley to be surprised about. However, Riley's gonna need me for this one because of the changes that's gonna happen to her, to you guys, and to everywhere else."

Fear gave a wide-eyed frightful look as Sadness stopped crying to look at Surprise and Fear asked, "Wait, what changes? How exactly how will we be affected?"

Surprise looked to Fear with a sly smile and batted her eyelashes at him while saying sweetly, "If I told you, it would ruin the 'surprise' now would it?"

Two emotions were deeply affected by this particular action.

Fear eyes widened to the point where he looked like he didn't even have eyelids, his face had a slightly reddish hue, his eyebrows were in a circular arc and his antenna was immediately standing attention in a straight line. He was never approached in this way and he was obviously nervous on how she looked at him like she was soon gonna trap him in her clutches.

Joy, on the other hand, was completely shocked and, for the most part, felt somewhat mortified by how she acted and spoke to Fear. It was like something ugly suddenly burrowed inside you and you noticed it at the last second.

When Anger and Disgust were done arguing, basically everyone found out and knew Surprise's backstory thorough Surprise herself.

After Riley was born, she was not created within the mind of Riley but was actually created in the Subconscious, back when there weren't any 'troublemakers' at the time. After the first few years, she had to move out due to some 'first-time offenders' needing a place to be held. After exploring Riley's mind and seeing everything it has to offer, she actually saw problems with Riley's mind that could be fixed as she matured. Surprise then gathered a position as the 'Head' Manager of the Mind Workers.

Basically, she is the boss who takes care of all the red flags in the mind and give directions and instructions to the mind workers, does tons of paper work over the on/off fuctionality, destroyed, rebuilt, and newly built islands that connect under the memories, supervises the changes to certain aspects of Riley's mind based on her age (like ordering some of the demolition of Imagination Land and the creation of Riley's Imaginary Boyfriend), and many other things.

She was even the boss of the other Emotions until now.

As Riley went to sleep and the emotions as well, Surprise wanted to make a good impression by volunteering to do Dream Duty on the First Day.

She actually wanted to do this since she didn't have a room to stay in and wanted to take a moment to take this all in and take a deep breath. Personally, Surprise was having a migraine the moment she set foot to HQ, the source of all of her problems and paperwork. Looking at a dream where Riley was trying to figure out how the pizza box is square, the pizza pie is circle, and the pizza slices are triangle, Surprise thought back to the others she had met.

Getting the hard one out of the way, Anger was a rock wall she had to demolish, a short fuse to tons of TNT, a brick that would happily volunteer itself to smash a window of the most secure building in the world. Getting him to change during the Puberty phase will be immensely difficult, but at least his rage would be less occurring at the end.

Disgust was someone she can at least sensibly communicate to; while she helped her understand the situation right now, Surprise had a feeling that Disgust will also be difficult to deal with. As Riley gets older, she will experience changes and new things, including how she sees food and how certain things are disgusting to her, so she was gonna 'shove her off a cliff' if she has to just to make her mature.

Sadness was something she expected but, for the first time, actually doesn't know how to deal with her; Surprise realized that she has to spend more time with her to understand her role in HQ, but as far as she could tell, she was the cushion to the other emotions and the researcher behind the mind manuals. She sees Sadness as a potential advisor in the next few years of Riley's life, but until then, she just needs to observe and improve in creating a relationship.

Fear was a complete surprise to her in every way; Surprise expected Fear to be like the other emotions in HQ, but he was more relatable to his role then she realized. Even off the console, Fear was always on his toes, always afraid of what might come next, preparing for worst-case scenarios. Surprise had to giggle at this, seeing this as adorable and hilarious. Which was also the reason why she flirted with him.

But the next thought made her stop giggling.

 _Joy_

Immediately, just thinking the word was making her have a splitting headache that made her want to bash her face into the console, hopefully creating her first ever memory of her first day in HQ with whatever cognitive production she has left.

If she had a nickel for every time her name came across her desk, it would stuff The Dump up to the point where memories wouldn't fit anymore.

Whenever she heard about her, she was anything BUT joyful. Joy was the 'Thorn to her side', the troublemaker during the 'Island Collapse's' and the control freak of HQ. Her eyes literally strain day and night at the sight of the endless yellow memories that lined the shelves. Even seeing Joy in person made her head strain at looking at her tinker-bell glow. She would rant about Joy, but the giant folder with her name on the tag would tell the story itself. Surprise had received reports of how Joy's large quantity of memories and Islands had too much of an influence, leaving most of the other emotions redundant and lacking balance in the mind. After numerous reports of her antics constantly filling her inbox holder on her desk, she also received police reports of Joy and Sadness outside of HQ, causing havoc to the Islands and nearly making Riley never feel anything again.

In a way, Surprise saw this coming. It was like an addiction; if you rely on one thing, it was going to be constantly be used, like making Riley happy. But if Joy wasn't in HQ, Riley would go through a 'relapse' when the other emotions can't make Riley happy, leading to the destruction of the Islands. But that wasn't it, she received eyewitness reports of her and Sadness shuffling though the endless corridors of memories, attempting multiple times to cross over the dump to reach HQ, help Bing Bong, a thief of memories and one of the many loose fugitives, escape the Subconscious (Don't get her started on how they had to keep back the troublemakers after the door was destroyed), she and the others broke into and disturbed a recording session in Dream Productions TWICE, responsible for the 'disappearances' of two cloud civilians and damage to a cloud building, toppled the House of Cards multiple times, tried to stop a couple of mind workers from sending old memories to the dump, the spawning of over 9999999999 imaginary boyfriends; the list goes on.

Trying to fix all that made her stay up for a week straight.

She could of warned them about it, but she was always too busy, especially when there is always work to be done in the mind. But seeing the islands suddenly be rebuilt made her do even more paper work.

After realizing that Riley was about to enter her teens, Surprise begin prepping for Puberty. Now that she is finally in HQ, she sees some, if not all of those emotions, out of control, so she was gonna straighten them out and help them mature.

 _Especially_ **Joy**.

While she is an emotion herself, Surprise doesn't have any cognitive production to support her in making her own memories since she has been away from the console from the very beginning, but she is in charge of Riley growing up, and Puberty involved that.

Surprise then opened the little door under the console and pulled a switch.

It was like opening a program on a laptop while a movie played. Surprise uses this everyday for the mind, so using it on the Monitor felt enjoyable. She opened a software where it shows bios and statistics on Riley's body.

Surprise noticed that Riley's skin, on the forehead, has sebaceous glands (oil glands that form sweat) that are overactive from focusing in school and since she hasn't showered yet, bacteria are growing inside them. Surprise simply sent a yellow flag to the 24/7 IHL, the Immunity Hotline, to inform the immune system on the problem and let them deal with it.

Seeing that was it, she closed the program and continued watching the boring dream with a sly smirk on her face, seeing how in the morning, the others will have a complete 'surprise' waiting for them.

* * *

After Sadness spilled the beans on knowing there was a 6th emotion, it took all of Anger's will power to not cause the sprinklers in the hallway to come on. Sadness got scared and hid behind Joy like a frightened child under Anger's heated stare.

And, surprisingly, Fear came into the conversation; He said how while we are all affected by this, we shouldn't be hostile to it and that since Surprise is here to help Riley get through Puberty, all they had to do was just deal with her being there until Surprise left, which is when Riley was done with Puberty.

This calmed the group, mostly Anger, and they all decided to turn in for the night.

Each emotion felt something to Surprise's presence in HQ.

Anger was still pissed of about what happened today. But while they finally dealt with the Triple-Dent Gum memory and locked it inside his chest, it resulted in Puberty starting, making Surprise come.

Anger couldn't put his finger on it, but like all the emotions that irritated him in HQ, there was also that same sense in Surprise; her calm but bossy attitude, her maturity over small things, and even how she talked and treated them so far was making him boil.

After getting ready for bed, Anger tossed and growled in annoyance as he soon went to sleep.

Disgust sighed in exhaustion. She is always responsible for cooling down Anger, it was like holding back the leash to a pit bull that wanted to bite the neighbor.

But she did agree with Anger; Sadness should have told them, and now that Surprise is here, she started to worry just how much she was going to change Riley.

Deciding to think on the matter tomorrow, she got out of her dress and had on a bath robe and matching slippers. She then basically did her beauty sleep ritual.

She polished her nails, washed, dried, and then wrapped her hair in rods that curl the ends of her hair, brushed her teeth, flossed, removed her makeup, and then went to sleep in a particular position that doesn't damage her nails and hair.

Sadness, was crying in her room. After she changed into something comfortable, she sobbed into her pillow.

She used to do this often, and her pillow got so soggy that she had to bundle her blankets as a make-shift pillow from time to time.

But Sadness was sad because she was afraid of how things might change around HQ; She read all about it in the mind manuals, how all of the emotions will mature in the most chaotic of ways, and knowing that it will happen to her and all of her friends made her cry even more.

Slowly, she cried herself to sleep, finding comfort in her thick sheets and her fluffy pillow that comforted her every time she cried.

Fear, to say the least, was having a very weird feeling.

This wasn't a feeling of flattery, but a feeling of dread; He has never been approached in a way that Surprise has, and it not only made him extremely nervous, but because he never knew how to react to another emotion if that said emotion flirted with him.

In a way, it also felt nice; to be approached and try to bond with another gave him a nice warm feeling, which he also didn't like.

That reason is because he actually liked another.

But after all this time, he was started to feel doubtful; she never gave a second glance to him, she never sincerely took him in any regard of closeness; she never even said something truthfully sweet to him.

And Surprise did that, not the one he saw as his only star.

Fear then began to think that maybe it was meant to be, and seeing how Surprise likes him, maybe he should just give her a chance, see where it goes.

Setting his mind, he switched to his pajamas and turned on his nightlight before going to bed and then to sleep.

Finally, we go to the emotion we have all known to be happy.

But she was anything BUT happy right now.

Joy just couldn't get the memory of Surprise and how she flirted with Fear.

It made her yellow particle-glowing skin get goosebumps that made her feel… unsettled… even a little disgusted.

Which is a first for the happiest emotion in HQ.

She was sort-of in a state of **Denial** , saying how that probably means nothing, maybe she just took it the wrong way and Surprise was just playing around.

But, deep down, she felt like she was just lying to herself.

If she was to be honest right now, she was actually a little scared, afraid of losing him to the emotion that JUST came here.

Surprise just came to HQ a few minutes ago and she is already setting her claws around Fear.

Joy was nervous, concerned on what would happen if she approached Fear in such a way, always pondering on the possibly not returning such feelings and making things weird between them in HQ until the day that all eventually faded when Riley 'went out.'

That was what she truly feared; for Fear to reject her, and it was contrasting her optimistic 'never say no!' personality in every way.

Suddenly, Joy grew tense and shook her head, rejecting that thought. There was no way she was just gonna let some outsider storm in, say that changes will be made, and make a move on one of her closest friends in the entire mind.

Then she had a thought, one of those 'I'm-positive-this-is-crazy' thoughts.

Joy was going to make sure that Surprise wasn't going to take Fear away from her. First thing she is going to do was get Fear alone is just tell him, regardless of what happens. If they were returned, she will make HQ burn brighter than any star. But if he didn't…

Joy hardened again. If it came to it, she was just going to have to accept it. She's not going to run away just because her little heart broke, instead, she was going to suck it up and keep working with them for Riley.

Setting her mind on the matter, she switched to her blue robes with white flowers, her favorite, and slipped into bed, slowly falling to sleep with the bad memory and an unsettling feeling in her stomach.

Right before she fell asleep, Joy thought that there is no force in the mind, which even then didn't stop her from reaching HQ again, that will make her not tell Fear how she felt.

But there was also another feeling she had…

…and it was ugly, with green eyes…

* * *

 **Part 1 is over, the next chapter will continue onto part 2.**


	5. The Green-Eyed Monster (Part 2)

**Sup guys! While I know its been a while, I've been super hard at work on making the next part of the short. And with this part of the short, there will be more 'joyful' and 'fearful' scenes in it!**

 **Let's see those responses!**

 **Mina** **: As a bonus short maybe, but until then, keep reviewing!**

 **fustratedscientist94** **: YES! I have officially converted you into a follower known amongst all as a 'Starnerve shipper'! Speak of our gospel to all! (Seriously though, I'm happy you liked these stories and are fully supporting the pairing!).**

 **tadamuisthebest** **: I'm glad you liked the stories! But don't worry if you don't like this one, it's only half. Trust me, everyone who is a starnerve shipper on this fic didn't like how Surprise flirted with Fear (even I felt negative feelings towards writing it in the first place, but plot development was essential!). We'll all see how it turns out in the end!**

 **Spirit734** **: AWWWWWW :D Va tutto bene, e vi ringrazio per la revisione racconti! Spero di sentire da voi ancora una volta nella sezione commenti! (It's okay, and thank you for reviewing the short stories! Hope to hear from you again in the review section!)**

 **Coon** **: Thanks man! Being perspectival, I wanted to explore how Joy can feel multiple conflicting emotions within this two-short. I'm not going to stop writing! Don't worry, I'll keep it up!**

 **coconutcinnamon** **: Hey, thanks for reviewing again! Thank you for your opinion on my OC! And thank you for being awesome! And nice to see you caught on to the rising conflict which we will see in the next chapter. Now, if only I can write how Joy would show Fear just how much he matters to her…**

 **And this is special to me: the author '** **Starnerve** **' himself has reviewed all my shorts! (My emotions are freaking out and 'overjoyed' by just how much his reviews mean on this fic! It's like getting a famous person to sign an autograph, or give a stamp that said, 'stranerve was here' or something awesome like that!) Thank you for your awesome support and I hope to see more reviews from you!**

 **Now, let's ride this Train of Thought somewhere we haven't been to in the mind!**

* * *

 _ **The Green-Eyed Monster**_

 _ **(Part 2)**_

* * *

As morning rose to greet the Andersen family, Riley finally awakened to the sound of birds chirping and the shining ray of sunrise peeking through her window.

And what was great was that it was the weekend, meaning that she had a game today and had already finished her homework from yesterday.

After getting dressed, she went to the bathroom, and brushed her teeth.

And when she looked to the mirror to see if she had any bad bed hair, did she widened her eyes and gave a quick gasp of air.

* * *

When the mind awoken, the mind workers polluted the Long Term corridors, was setting up shop on the new set at Dream Productions, riding the Train of Thought, managing Abstract thought, and many other tasks.

Word traveled fast through the Mind Reader that their boss, Surprise, moved to HQ since Riley entered Puberty. And many of them wondered how she was managing the emotions.

Next thing they knew, not even the glass at HQ could block out the blood-curling scream that echoed the mind for 4 seconds.

Then they went back to work, seeing how their question was already answered.

 **Back at HQ**

Disgust finally stopped screaming, which made the other emotions rush from their rooms to see what was going on.

Okay, what exactly happened between scenes?

Let's go back a few minutes.

Disgust was the first to wake up, having already dressed and wanted Riley to brush her teeth since she didn't brush last night.

When she walked to the monitor, she saw Surprise, chillin' on the couch, with a devious smirk on her face.

Disgust narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but said, "Morning"

Surprise said back mischievously, "Morning."

Disgust ordered Riley to go the bathroom to brush her teeth and Disgust asked Surprise, "How was your first Dream Duty?"

Surprise looked to her nails in boredom and said, "The dream was about how a pizza box was a square, how the pizza was a circle, and how the pizza slices are triangles. I know Dream Productions were hitting a rough patch with some of their writers quitting, but I can see how it's getting worse."

Disgust rolled her eyes and said, "You know, based on what you told us the other night, I thought you would of taken care of th-"

The moment Riley looked into the mirror and gave a gasp did Disgust stop herself in shock and saw...

... a big...

...red...

...white...

...gross...

...blob...

...on her forehead.

Cue said scream.

And the sound of a very green orb, the first memory of the day, hitting the wall in it's short-term memory slot echoed HQ afterwards.

As the emotions quickly left to room to see what the commotion was, they also saw that said blob.

Anger saw it, and his head boiled, making a pillar of fire come out of his head.

Sadness fell face first to the ground and cried by the horror.

Fear screamed and hid behind one of the couches, fearing that Riley was sick.

Joy, was mortified, and just stood there, unable to respond to what was going on.

Then came Surprise's laughter.

They looked to the couch to see Surprise laughing so hard, she was hurting her sides in pain and crying her eyes out.

After a while, Surprise got a grip and after wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, she said, "That was for all the trouble you caused me during the Island Collapses."

Anger was suddenly having her in his grip and growled, "What...did...you...do?"

Next thing he knew, Anger was face first against the ground, paralyzed and silent.

Everyone was speechless.

Surprise looked to Anger and said in disappointment, "I had no idea you were out of control this much. Attacking another emotion? What are you thinking?"

"Um..." Sadness said to Surprise with much worry, "Is Anger going to be okay?"

Surprise waved it off and said, "He'll be fine, he just needs a time out. Besides, Riley doesn't need to be Angry at the moment. Anger will come back soon."

Surprise looked to Fear and asked out of concern, "Fear, be honest with me; Does Anger regularly get physical or abusive with you and the others?"

Everything that's happened, from finding the blob, to the screams, to Anger being paralyzed, Fear was at the peak of freaking out and hiding somewhere, but the way Surprise questioned Fear, the way she looked when she was concerned, like she cared about the well being of all of them, made Fear's heart calm down.

Still afraid though, Fear said, "Um... he doesn't get physical with any of us... except me..."

Surprise gave a surprised and worried look and said, "He only hurts you? Why?"

Fear glanced at Anger, still on the floor, and said, "I don't know. You should ask him that when he comes back."

What came next was not what they were expecting.

Disgust immediately caught their attention and said, "I don't care! Do any of you care that there is that-THING-on her face!?"

All the emotions saw Riley looking at the red and white dot on her forehead, grossingly pocking it and wincing since it hurt to touch it.

Joy finally spoke, "What is that?"

Surprise stated, "I don't know, but you know what I do know; We have parents to ask them. I think we should talk to mom."

Disgust didn't hesitate to press a button.

* * *

Riley called out, "Mom! I need you!"

"Hang on a sec, I'll be right there." And after a moment of silence, Ms. Andersen came in to see a grossed-out girl with a swelling red numb on her forehead.

Ms. Andersen looked surprised at first, but then she smiled and said, "Aw honey, you're having your first pimple! You know what this means?"

Thanks to Fears input, Riley responded with a worried look and said, "What?"

She said, "It means that your going to go through puberty soon! You're going to be a beautiful young lady when you grow older. Don't worry, I went through exactly what you're going through, and I'll be there to help you through it. Just wait until I tell you're father."

Riley could only guess at the horrifying reaction her father would have (for fatherly reasons).

 **Back in HQ**

Surprise tried to hide her smile with her hand as the others watched with mortified expressions as Disgust puked into one of Fear's spare paper bags.

"HEY!" Fear said with irritation, "That was my bag!"

Disgust finally stopped and said, "I have every reason to be grossed out! Riley have a zit on her face! How is it that none of you are freaking out!?"

Sadness came in and said, "In the mind manuals, it said that the early stages of puberty is when you started having pimples from having bacteria growing inside the pores of the skin. It's natural, but also painful when the time comes to remove the puss in it."

Disgust widened her eyes to Sadness, "Wait, we have to remo-"

Riley's mom spoke through the monitor by saying, "And it looks like it's ready to pop! Here, let me help."

After 10 seconds of deep and excruciating pain Riley never felt before, Disgust turned a shade greener at looking at the white puss on her mom's finger and ran to the bathroom.

And didn't come out of it for the next half hour.

* * *

With Riley feeling pain on her head and playing on her Nintendo 3DS, did the emotions slowly dawn over the fact that changes like this will affect Riley and how they will all react to it.

Surprise explained that she sent a message to the IHL, Immunity Hotline, to deal with the bacteria that was in Riley's forehead since she didn't take a shower.

That meant its her doing that made Riley be in pain.

Sadness also pointed out that since Riley's body is working itself up to change because of puberty, they will experience pain and changes in her body, and one of them is constantly sweating, resulting in more pimples in the future.

Disgust didn't have anything left in her stomach when she came back, and glared daggers at Surprise for what she did.

Anger came too again, and growled at how he was taken down with a simple pinch to the neck. Next thing he knew, he was at the mercy of Surprise, being interrogated for his violence against Fear and will be punished in the future.

And as Riley were going through the motions of the day, Joy was trying to figure out how to get Fear alone.

But they were all busy during the day, so she settled on when Riley went into REM.

And, after a long day of being at the game, hanging out with mom and dad, and texting Jordan (to which the the emotions noticed that Riley was sort of acting strange around the boy), did the emotions finally rest when Riley went to sleep.

Joy saw Fear volunteering to do Dream Duty as a downside, but she convinced herself that it was possibly a good opportunity to confront Fear.

As she waited in her room for the hour where everyone was possibly sleeping, she paced in anticipation. She just couldn't wait, but she knew she had to.

She thought to herself on how Fear could possibly react to her if she confessed her feelings; Knowing Fear, he would be shocked and shake in nervousness or most likely have a panic attack and faint without one of his paper bags nearby, or probably run away and hide somewhere where she and the others couldn't find him for a while. But she imagined what it would be like for Fear to say that he liked her too. She always imagined just how truly happy she would feel. What future moments they could share together, working together in how to help Riley with her day-to-day life, and what possibilities the future might hold for the both of them.

Sometimes, when she is imaginings such scenarios, she would often catch herself being too bright.

She was always optimistic and never thought of the negative side of things, but when it came to Fear and how she felt about him, did she always think of of how it would always end badly for her.

But she knew that Surprise was here, and as long as she was here, every second Joy stalled was allowing Surprise to get closer to Fear.

Once it was past midnight, and knowing that Riley is still asleep and that Fear is still watching a dream, Joy slowly opened her door and snuck out.

Once she was near the corner of the hallway towards where they work, Joy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to be nervous. But if anything, her heart continued to pump hard in her chest, tightening, almost making her nerves unsettled.

She wondered if Fear always felt this way everyday, to everything, or even to her.

Then she heard a giggle.

And Joy knew that she didn't giggle just now.

Immediately peaking around the corner, she saw it.

Fear was there, ignoring the dream where Riley was flying (which was one of Dream Productions most popular movie, must be a rerun), and was instead talking and focusing on Surprise.

Joy could do nothing but hold her breath and stare in disbelief.

Because the couches was blocking her view of them, she could only see their heads. But she saw how Surprise continued to try to get close to Fear, and how Fear looked nervous but went with it. After a minute of this, Fear somehow backed off and Joy was able to hear that he was nervous about this, and Surprise said that she could wait, that she would give him the time he needed.

Joy was already in her room, giving off a frustrating yell into her pillow.

Joy began to realize what she missed in her plan; Surprise didn't have a room yet! Of course she would stay up with Fear because of this and use the opportunity to be closer to him before Joy could. Sitting upright in bed, she began to get frustrated; she thought on how it wasn't fair, and she felt, deep down, that Surprise wasn't right for him.

Maybe she was just being jealous, but she began to wonder; What made Surprise more attractive to Fear rather than Joy?

Surprise may be 'manager' bossy, but she is mischievous and somewhat laid back when given the opportunity, like a hipster or something, and how 'chill' she was with everything and how she can easily handle the emotions without the responsibility of handling Riley.

Joy, on the other hand was optimistic, bubbly, always having a 'never stopping until I see that smile!' attitude, always trying to being people moods up and always trying to end thing on a happy note. Saying a joke to two, play a catchy tune on her accordion, even trying to get close to others just to bathe them in her light can make them cheer up a little, like a nice candle. And while she was bossy to everyone back in the day, she moved on and began to improve on herself for Riley and her friends sakes.

But then she had another thought; what about how she looked?

Slowly, she got up and went to the tall mirror. This mirror was actually custom-made for Joy, for her brightness constantly made a bright glare effect on all of the reflective surfaces of her room (mirror included), so this mirror was designed to show a reflection but remove all reflective glare from all light sources except the light needed to see in a room.

 **As stated in the earlier half of the short** , Surprise and Joy had almost the same hight and figure, but Joy wondered what made Surprise different in appearance. She questioned her particles; Did Fear prefer the shade of light blue rather than her sunshine glow? She questioned her clothes; Dies Fear prefer full wardrobe appeal, for Fear and Surprise fit that description, rather than her 'I can dance in a meadow and not get dirty!' dress? She questioned her hair; Does Fear prefer hair that goes down rather than up?

Out of jealousy, Joy tried to bring her hair down, but no matter what she did, it continued to stay upright. She thought of possibly using one of Disgust's conditioners, but she wasn't going to 'borrow' Disgust's stuff, Joy isn't like that. Giving a frustrating huff and glaring at herself in the mirror with her eyebrows frowning, Joy felt like she just couldn't compete with Surprise.

And in that moment, she thought of how it was Surprises fault that she was being self-conscious about herself, and she never was until she showed up. She thought that it was unfair that the one thing that she always wanted, since the moment that she realized she liked Fear, was begin taken away from her by an outsider. She had no right to make her this way, she had no right to take Fear away, and if the button was never pressed, she didn't even have the right to be here in the first place! To come in and say 'things are changing around here' and make her jealous made her want to drag Surprise by the hair and kick her out with the tube that took her and Sadness to long-term and make sure that she never came back! She even wanted to-

Joy paused.

And she felt it.

Her room feels a lot warmer than usual.

After a moment of trying to figure out where it was coming from, she realized that it was her.

The place where she put her feet was warmer than one step away where it was less warm.

Feeling the particles on her skin, she realized that the particles that gave off her sunshine glow was giving off heat like a furnace, like the sun in space.

And looking to the mirror in disbelief, she realized that she felt a different emotion for the first time.

For the first time, she became **Angry**.

And even though it sort of scared her, she felt slightly empowered, more forward to getting something done, and she even wanted to storm in, kick Surprise out, and tell Fear how she felt.

Realizing it's late, she switched to her robes and went to sleep, thinking that she will eventually calm down, and thought that she was only feeling this way because Riley is undergoing changes that affected everyone.

Her sheets still felt warmer than usual, and her mood still kept her up until she was too tired to stay awake.

And the weird thing was, one emotion felt Joy go into his 'area-of-expertise', and he went to sleep to investigate tomorrow.

* * *

Another day, another struggle for Joy.

Which is a very large understatement for what she had to go through.

Fortunately, it was still the weekend.

Unfortunately, even though Riley took a shower, she was still growing pimples.

And there was more than the one before.

And Disgust still kept bringing out one green memory after another.

It was total chaos, but Surprise watched over them and got them all under control every time they tried to take control of Riley.

However, Joy began to notice how her mood affected her work.

And everyone else was able to _feel_ it radiating off of her.

Her body was still radiating heat all around her, making those close to her unable to breath or got slightly sweaty.

Whenever Riley needed to be happy and Joy had to be on the console, Riley responded with a caring and happy attitude but also showed slight annoyance and a little attitude to certain things that she noticed she was being annoyed by things that never annoyed her before.

After some of the day passed, Joy herself and the others eventually figured out that Joy was somehow making Riley act this way.

Sadness assumed that maybe the changes affecting Riley were having an affect on the main emotion that Riley always relied on, Joy.

Everyone else bought it, but there was one emotion that saw right through Joy's act.

When the day was getting late, it was a surprise ( **hehe** ) that the Train of Thought arrived at this time...

...especially with all of Surprises stuff.

Somehow, there was an extra room added into HQ without everyone knowing except for the mind workers and Surprise herself.

They didn't pay attention to what Surprise was putting into the room until Riley went to sleep.

Her room wasn't really a room. It was more like an office with a closet and a small bed in the corner.

"This is your room? There is literally no style or personality to it." Disgust said with irritation, still annoyed by what Surprise did yesterday.

Surprise gave a shrug and said, "As long as work needed to be done, personalizing wasn't really on the top of my to-do list. If it make's you feel any better, you can do it for me."

Disgust held her hand up in a 'hold-the-phone' manner and said, "Uh-no. Sorry. I get busy often too. You know, helping Riley get through what YOU did!"

"Okay, enough!" Anger bursted.

With both women quiet, he stated, "Look, we know we have to go through these stupid changes thanks to my mistake, and we also know that you both don't like each other, but until Riley is done with puberty, Surprise is staying here until it's time to kick her out for good and-"

"Actually," Surprise cutted in with annoyance, "You're right; I will leave, but there will be future moments in Riley's life where I will have to be there, so this won't be the last time you will see me."

Suddenly, everyone felt a certain type of heat.

And it wasn't coming from Anger.

"Joy, you're venting again." Sadness said

Joy was so angry by what Surprise said, she didn't know she was 'venting' (which is what the group nicknamed Joy's heating sessions) and said, "*Sigh* I know Sadness, I can feel it too. It's completely random and I can't control it."

Once again, one of the emotions was seeing right through her Um-Gwalla-Gwalla ( **it's a personal joke** ).

Surprise went inside her room and said, "If you guys want to, I can show you the files I have of your endeavors in HQ."

Fear looked to her with immense worry and said, "What? You've been seeing what we did?!"

Surprise gave a light laugh and said, "No, not really. But they are actually documentations given to me by the mind workers as they saw your performances since the day Riley was born."

After opening a locked drawer, Surprise began to hand Fear's file, then was Sadness's, Disgust's, and Anger's.

While looking through their documentations, Sadness asked, "Where's Joy's?"

Surprise than gave Joy a glaring stare with a irritated huff and went to her closet where she kept some of her clothes and work. Surprise than said, "Of all the emotions that gave me the most work in the Mind, none have yet to match what Joy has done."

Taking it out for all to see and slamming it onto her table, Surprise finished, "And no, it's not a compliment."

They all looked with wide eyes at the size of Joy's file. It had the volume of at least three mind manuals.

Surprise took out one sheet from it and said, "This is a list of what the file contains; 'REPORT: Joy's large quantity of memories and Islands had too much of an influence, leaving most of the other emotions redundant and lacking balance in the mind. Recent: Police reports of Joy and Sadness outside of HQ, causing havoc to the Islands and nearly making Riley state-of-mind shut down entirely. However, newly formed islands brought balance and made the other emotions important for the first time in years. Absence of Joy and Sadness in HQ itself resulted in Riley going through a 'relapse' when the other emotions can't make Riley happy, leading to the destruction of the Islands.' I've received eyewitness reports of you and Sadness shuffling though the endless corridors of memories, attempting multiple times to cross over the dump to reach HQ, help Bing Bong, a thief of memories and one of the many loose fugitives, escape the Subconscious, and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW WE HAD TO KEEP ALL THE TROUBLEMAKERS FROM ESCAPING THE SUBCONSCIOUS AFTER THE DOOR WAS DESTROYED AND CATCHING JANGLES AGAIN. How the both of you broke into and disturbed a recording session in Dream Productions TWICE without security noticing is beyond me. You guys were also responsible for the 'disappearances' of two cloud civilians, which some policemen want a testimony from you, and damage to a cloud building. You also toppled the House of Cards multiple times, tried to stop a couple of mind workers from sending old memories to the dump. You even started the spawning of over 9,999,999,999 imaginary boyfriends; the list goes on and on and on. I swear, If I heard another saying of 'I-woud-DIE-for-Riley' again, I was going to throw them all into the Dump."

Putting the paper down, Surprise said to Joy harshly, "You should actually be thanking me, for someone had to clean up your mess or else Riley would be in a coma right now. If you really thought I was a problem up to now, just know that your little tinker-bell over there nearly destroyed everything that made Riley exist, just so she could make sure Riley stays 'happy'."

To say the event's that happened after Joy and Sadness got ejected from HQ, as explained in the paper, was a major understatement to the amount of havoc and damage that they actually did. Basically, Joy was trying so hard to get back, she almost destroyed parts of Riley's mind, piece by piece along the way. The baffled looks from her three friends and the sympathetic look from Sadness told Joy just how deep she dug her already dug-up grave that represented the Dump of the Mind.

Surprise continued, "I wish I would of came sooner to stop this from happening. But now that I am here, I'm going to make sure that this DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN. And that started with some changes, including you Joy."

This time, Joy was knowing thats he was about to vent again, and it was going to be hot in this room in a few seconds, almost like she was willing herself to heat up. Not only was she seen in a bad light, but she was insulted by being called a 'tinker-bell'. She wanted to choke Surprise and shake her neck until she was knocked out.

But someone unexpected stepped in.

"Surprise, stop it." Fear said

Everyone looked to him, caught off guard by how he stepped in.

Surprise herself looked to him, not with annoyance, but with curiosity, actually wanting to know what he needed to say.

Fear continued, "You're right, Joy has been making our lives hard enough by not let us make Riley react to certain things, but what you're wrong about is that Joy doesn't need to be changed, because she already is changing. Ever since she came back home, Joy has been giving us all time to help Riley, including Sadness, but Anger wasn't allowed since making her angry after running away won't help her situation. Thanks to her, we created new Islands that make us all important to Riley for the first time. And as far as I'm concerned, Joy doesn't need to change, and should never change. Maybe the others and I need to change, but it should just be us."

Joy felt it; she didn't have that heat around her anymore, and her heart fluttered in how Fear stood up to Surprise for her.

It made her want to tell him just how much she meant to him right there and then...

...but after what's happened, it didn't feel like the right time.

And then the emotion saw it, and made the connection.

Surprise gave a amused smile and said, "It's cute what you're doing right now Fear, and I admire that. Look, these reports are form Joy's past, but this stands as a history lesson for me to know that it can possibly happen again. I am here to help all of you, not get rid of Joy. Everyone needs happiness after all. Now, let's get some sleep. Since Anger is no longer on Dream Duty as punishment, I guess it's Joy's turn then."

Bidding each other goodnight, most of them went to their respective rooms.

As Fear was about to enter his room, he was suddenly hugged from behind.

He didn't need to turn around; the glowing arms that surround his midsection told him who it was.

Joy was hugging him tightly, almost in a thankful manner, and he heard Joy say to him, "Thank you for standing up for me."

Already, Fear felt his heart swelling just from the contact Joy was giving him alone. But for Joy to say that to him, to get the attention that Fear always wanted, made his mind set on just telling her why he did it.

But at the same time, Surprise was right on the points that Joy did, and it unfortunately made him see Joy somewhat in a bad way. Maybe he was right that Joy was already changing, but he could be wrong and Surprise can possibly aid Joy in never doing something like that again.

He was conflicted, but with a warm smile on his face, he said to Joy, "You're welcome. I'll try and not let Surprise give you too much of a hard time, okay?"

Joy placed her forehead against his back, a deep blush on her face and a threading-to-break smile came up at the thought of Fear promising to protect her. She was at the breaking point of just telling him, but she calmed down and said, "Thank you Fear. You have no idea how much that means to me."

Joy wanted to say more, but she letted him go and said, "Try and set some sleep. It's going to be another tough day tomorrow."

Bidding Joy goodnight with a smile, Fear entered his room and closed the door.

Joy soon realized that she just shared one of her first intimate moments with Fear, and was slowly having a panic attack out of happiness.

She went to the break room and quickly got some water into her system, which calmed her down.

After a few deep breaths, she sat down onto the couch, waiting for the dream to come up.

After a few minutes of waiting, she was already day-dreaming of Fear, remembering back to their earlier moment, and it just kept replaying in her mind, and she even thought of how it would of been different if she told him, or how it would be if he told her and-

"Ahem."

Joy immediately tensed and looked to see Anger to her left, arms crossed and a curious expression on his face while maintaining an annoyed scowl.

A little worried by the expression Anger gave her, Joy asked, "Hey... Anger. Why are you up? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Anger raised an eyebrow at Joy and asked, "The better question you should be asking is why are you not happy?"

Joy was a little taken aback from Anger's remark and said, "What?"

Anger eyebrows than frowned some more and said, "Joy, I am not a fool. You and I both know that being angry around here is MY job, not yours."

Joy's breath got caught in her throat. Already, she was having a panic attack. _Does Anger know about my crush to Fear?_

Anger gave a smirk and said, "You know how I get so angry that fire comes out from my head? Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see you 'venting' heat to know exactly what you were feeling. You know, thinking back to this, I wonder how the others would react if they ever got angry."

Turning serious, Anger then said, "But enough about that. I want to know why you're angry. And DON'T lie."

Already, Joy's thoughts raced a million mies an hour, but she had no direction to take this. Carefully thinking this over, she knew she wasn't one to lie, but she really didn't want to tell anyone of her crush to Fear, for she only wanted to tell him and him alone.

But then she realized that she can give half of the truth, not the whole truth.

Conflicted and uncomfortable, Joy gave a side glance out of nervousness before looking back to Anger and explaining, "Okay... you're right. I was angry. I however didn't know that I can vent heat from my particles like how you can erupt flames. I am angry at how Surprise is here and how she is making everything difficult for me to make Riley happy, and I guess her bring here is what is distracting me in the first place. But the reason I was really angry is..."

Joy felt immensely uncomfortable talking about how she was feeling, after all, this was Anger of all people. He isn't the kind of emotion to be all touchy-feely towards most things. But after that awkward pause, Joy continued, "...um... I don't like how Surprise has a 'thing' for Fear."

That was the half truth, but Anger widened his eyes in revelation, for he himself didn't know that Surprise liked Fear.

From there, Joy explained; She told Anger how this concerned her, for she could tell that Surprise wasn't right for Fear, and Fear has been uncomfortable around her advances (which was somewhat true). Anger inputed that when Fear stood up to Surprise for Joy, Joy's heat disappeared, so somehow, Fear helped Joy's problem by standing up for her, therefore preventing Joy from being angry.

Joy suddenly saw a possible future that neither she or Anger wanted and so she told him; Joy had the horrifying idea that if Fear was to grow onto Surprises Advances and like her, then it would be impossible for Surprise to leave HQ since Fear can't leave either.

Anger then walked to the other side of the couch Joy was sitting on and sat down, taking this possibly in.

After a moment of silence and seeing a very nervous Joy talking about this, Anger placed his fist in his palm and said, "Alright, how do we make sure they don't get together without the others knowing?"

Joy would of gladly accept Anger's help in making sure Fear and Surprise don't get together, but this can backfire and put the both of them in a lot of trouble, and the last thing Joy wanted was for Anger figure out that she liked Fear and was thinking this way out of jealously.

And then an interesting thought came to Joy; if she never feel in love with Fear, she probably would of liked Surprise being in HQ and would be ecstatic for her to stay in HQ and be a part of their 'crew.'

Immediately, Joy felt like puking at the thought, but didn't physically show it.

As nicely as she could, Joy said, "It's okay Anger. I'm already coming up with a plan to make sure that doesn't happen. I will make sure Surprise does not even think of staying."

Concerned with Joy handling this herself rather than accepting his help, Anger asked, "Are you sure you can do that on your own?"

Joy said in confidence, "Don't worry. Surprise will never get close with Fear anymore. I promise."

Anger gave her a conflicted but trusting look and said, "Alright, I trust you."

Getting up, he excused himself and bid Joy goodnight before leaving for his room.

Once Joy was completely alone, did the anger that she once had for Surprise, began to fade.

Joy didn't know why, but she wasn't one to be angry at someone, even if it was with someone trying to take someone she loved away.

And then another thought came to her, one she would of never thought.

Is she being the bad guy right now?

Joy did promise that she was going to make sure Fear and Surprise didn't get together, but what if they both did like each other? What if Surprise liked Fear for the same reasons Joy liked him?

What made her feel worse was when she realized that maybe Fear never liked her in the first place. Sure he was nervous around her, but he was nervous around everyone because he was always on his toes and always afraid. And now that Surprise came, Fear finally had someone to like. Joy was so blinded by her jealousy against Surprise that she never thought of possibly losing the relationship both Joy and Fear created simply due to sabotaging Fear first and possibly only relationship he could ever have.

And Joy promised to take that away from Fear, just because he wasn't hers.

And in that moment, Joy felt so pathetic, knowing that she wanted to cross that line and ruin everything, just like how she nearly ruined Riley.

As Joy felt another remotion, one she felt before, as she closed her eyes and silently begged Fear for his forgiveness, and with her hands in her face, did her tears fell down her cheeks like rain on a window, and her small sobs quietly echoed HQ throughout the night.

For Joy knew that she turned into her own worst nightmare; a green-eyed monster.

* * *

 **You know, it comes to the point where you've invested so much stuff into a short, it no longer becomes a short but a full story in episode form? Well, it's happening. I could make a new story, but I already got reviews on the first part of this story and I don't want to make you guys review it again. So this Train of Thought is going to keep chucking, for better or worse.**

 **I really wanted to end this half here, but I see that there is going to be another part to it! Keep cranking those reviews, for the next one will come out soon!**


	6. The Green-Eyed Monster (Part 3)

**Hey guys! Got another short cooking after this one, and I've been really busy, but don't worry, more shorts are on the way. Before we get to read on, lets look at the reviews!**

 **StarNerve : And now the short unfolds. Hopefully, things turn out for the better for all parties (or at least MOST of them).**

 **Iloveyoutubers : Awwwww. I love YouTuber's too! And you as well for reviewing!**

 **Mystrieuse : Huh... You left a rather very cryptic and misplaced review. It took me a while to piece together what you were saying, but I think I get it. Hope to hear from you again!**

 **Extreme Light 9 : Interesting username. Respect for creativity! Fret not, for the update is here.**

 **Ace Warbringer : My man! Hope you enjoyed the movie and hope your liking these shorts! (Doin' a crossover with this guy between the Elder Scrolls series and Frozen. Check out the rewritten version on his page if you enjoy my work!)**

 **SwanPrincess1121 : My Lady of the Swans, I am grateful that you love my shorts.I hope you grace me once more with more reviews in the future! :3**

 **Guest : (Review from 'Be My Nightlight') IK it's sweet!**

 **Also, PuccaFanGirl made fanart for Joy in her blue robes in 'Be My Nightlight', which is F***ING awesome! Just follow this hashtag (#one of my favorite starnerve fanfics ahhhh 3) on Google or whatever search engine you use to see it on her tumbler! I'm just so lucky and happy, my mind is literally exploding with my Joy doing some crazy things in my immense hype!**

 **But enough about hype! For the hype ends now!**

* * *

 _ **The Green-Eyed Monster**_

 _ **(Part 3)**_

 _ **Dedicated to my first crush that I let slip through my fingers...**_

* * *

 **After what happened in our earlier part of the short, things were not looking good for everyone.**

As the days turned into a week, and the weeks became a month, and the months dragged on, Riley slowly began to show her symptoms of puberty in more and more physical ways.

One of which was having gone through a 'growth spurt,' which resulted in Riley's bones and joints feeling sore from growing, thus rendering Riley unable to play hockey until the aches went away.

Anger and Fear played their part in the matter, for Fear made Riley think that this is only the beginning, and feared the worst to happen later. Anger made Riley angry over her changes, finding this to be immensely horrible and wished for it to be over.

And for the first time in a while, Disgust agreed with Anger on that as well.

And as the months went by...

...the emotions were out of control. Surprise herself got migraines every night from all the pressure and mayhem the group was causing.

And then it happened.

 **Oh** **GOD, it happened.**

It all started when the group was going on with their business, but Disgust felt Riley had the immense the urge to pee...

...almost feeling like she was already peeing.

With Fear being worried, Disgust and Fear worked together to get Riley to the bathroom. She left and went to sit on the toilet, checking what was wrong with her now.

Then she saw it.

And so did they.

Blood.

Everyone looked to Disgust, but she wasn't disgusted. Instead, she looked to Fear in horror for he was about to do.

The millisecond everyone caught on to Disgust looking at Fear, Fear screamed in horror and slammed on the console.

Riley screamed in complete shock. Was she bleeding? How did this happen? So many questions raced through her mind as she got really scared.

Unfortunately, no one heard her, for Riley's mom went to the store to get food, but her Dad was still at home, fixing one of the windows from the outside with a lift to hold him up.

After slowly realizing that no one was coming to help her, Anger pushed Fear away, and before Surprise could stop him in time, Anger slammed his fists on some of the many buttons to release his frustration.

Unfortunately, this change in Riley only caused Anger's sensor for 'frustration' to turn into 'a-raging-hellfire'.

She quickly changed and went outside to her dad, showing him listening to music while drilling in the new window.

"DAD!" Riley kept yelling again and again and again, but he still couldn't hear her.

At the boiling point, Riley didn't think clearly as she grabbed a hammer from her dad's box of tools and threw it, wanting it to hit something to get his attention.

Only to land on his head, square in the skull, causing him to be disoriented and for him to fall off his support and onto the ground.

Riley froze with wide eyes, realizing what she just done.

And her emotions were having the same reaction.

Puberty. What did you expect?

* * *

Once the nurse at the hospital learned that the cause of the man's concussions was because of his daughter going through puberty, it became the joke of the day for the entire staff. Riley looked down in embarrassment while her dad sat next to her, an ice pack wrapped against his head. Eventually, Riley's mom came to pick them up with the car, and had to laugh a little bit at the hilarity of it.

When Riley got home was when her mom taught her about having a 'period' and how to properly use a 'tampon'.

Needless to say, that memory of that time in the day repeated itself against the short-term slots that made the walls of headquarters, mocking Anger for his embarrassing mistake. The green memory containing the information of a 'period' and 'tampon' mocked Disgust as well. Fear was all the more worried about it occurring again after another month.

Surprise also scolded Anger for doing something like that, knowing that while Riley was in puberty, their actions would extremely backfire if they were not careful to do it in a more controlled manner.

As the emotions had to deal with each other...

...Joy's glow began to dim again, without the others noticing.

Joy had fell into the next stage, **Depression**.

Ever since that day, when she made that promise to Anger, Joy felt horrible and depressed. Both from wanting to ruin Fear and Surprises relationship and from literally seeing them be together from time to time. After a while, it was no secret that Surprise liked Fear (except Anger, he already knew before the others knew), and now everyone was forced to be comfortable about it, even though it was really unorthodox.

Sadness once pointed out that most people don't have emotions that romantically like each other, and in the event of any emotion showing interests in another emotion is while the individual is going through puberty means that they are slowly beginning to question what they like...

...who they like...

...and among other interests.

Some night's, when Joy was alone in her room, she cried in silence. She would sometimes cry harder due to how she arranged her room in a cheerful manner, silently mocking her for having no reason to be happy.

As time went on, Joy started having habits when she was alone in her room, like sneaking in and eating midnight snacks (You've got crackers, whipped cream, ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter... **Eating Mind-Recess flavored ice cream sundaes? Idk. :P** ) while in her blue/white floral robes and binge-watching old Dreams while crying on her bed at the same time, just like the girls in those cliché drama shows.

It was even worse when she was on Dream Duty. She would cry and eat to a normal dream from time to time, but whenever she saw a romantic dream, she stuffed her face into the cushions and wept. What made it more depressing was how Joy thought of how Fear and Surprise got together on the couch she was on, and here she was, crying on it, like the universe was telling her how ironic that was.

Joy wasn't Sadness though; her eyes didn't have the capacity to store immense amount of water to keep it from going dry, which resulted in them being dry more often. Joy would proceed to wash her eyes and face early in the morning, cleaning the redness of her eyes and the tear-stains on her cheeks as to not raise suspicion.

But everyday, it was killing her on the inside, seeing how happy Fear was around Surprise rather than her.

And that thought alone made her look down and nearly cry again in front of the others. She was Joy! The literally glowing star of HQ, the happiness of Riley's life, the leader of her friends.

And yet, a stranger is doing something she was always wanted to do; make Fear happy.

And so today, after the incident, Joy hardened herself and silently listened to her friends (and acquaintance), guided Riley through the day, and ended up watching a commercial of Mountain Dew's Kickstart of 'Puppymonkeybaby' before watching a YouTube video by 'Super Planet Dolan" about "10 Common Mysteries About Dinosuars" until Riley went to sleep. ( **Question #9 has an easter egg. If you watch it and see it, you get an internet Cookie or a Internet Brownie. I do not own Danger Dolan and Shima's work.** )

Surprise had Dream Duty this time, which luckily gifted Joy the opportunity to disappear.

As the months went by, everyone except Surprise was slowly noticing and starting to worry about how Joy was acting.

They thought that with Riley being moody, Joy was being affected as well.

But of all the emotions to see how Joy has been feeling, Sadness saw right through Joy's less-than-bright glow nowadays.

Sadness should know; she was always like that all the time. It's not that she WANT'S to be like that all the time, but it's what makes what she represents, and that is to let out a cry every once in a while.

However, if it was any indication to Joy's routine and habits, Sadness suspected that there was a lot more to it than just one cry.

If you think about it, Sadness was the invisible elephant in the room; she is a lot more intelligent and observant than she let on. Her memorization of mind manuals taught her how to remember things to prepare for any situation, which was half of what Fear should do with her, but it's within Fear's nature to focus on protecting Riley from the outside world rather than their world.

But then again, Sadness saw how he was while being in a relationship with Surprise, if she could call it that at all, and it was having a negative affect on Fear's performance. And because Surprise liked Fear, she was doing part of her job horribly in not knowing he was messing up because of her.

Fear either went immensely (or accidentally) overboard often when it came to Puberty or was too distracted by Surprise's flirts and advances that he wasn't reacting properly to the dangers of Riley's life.

One example was getting another concussion from not avoiding her teammates stick in time, causing it to hit her and temporary numb her of movement.

They were lucky it was just her helmet that took the blunt and not her throat (like in that YouTube video).

And so, Sadness secretly began her super-secret mission of spying on Joy.

And surprisingly enough (hehe), the others didn't notice her spying. While she was recognized by the group, her 'invisibility' to her true intentions were always overlooked. Because of this, it took more than a month to see Joy in the state that she was in.

And so, Sadness decided that tonight was the night for direct confrontation. Letting out a cry was one thing, but actually talking about your problems for being sad to another person is a lot better than crying it out alone for a very long time.

After waiting a while, Sadness made her move. ( **Cue Mission Impossible's sneaky spy music that I do not own!** ) Slowly opening her door, she quietly walked a little bit down the hall to the entrance to Joy's room. ( **End music** **abruptly!** )

Once she was close to the door, Sadness placed her ear to hear what was going on inside. She heard the sound of loud muffled sounds, which occasionally paused to she that Joy was eating. She also heard the sound of a dream drama playing in her room.

Sadness knew that Joy can put a front in hiding how she felt, so Sadness planned to catch Joy in the act. That way, her intervention can help Joy be more forthcoming with what was wrong.

Putting together a curious/worried look, she opened her door quietly as to not let Joy notice.

Sadness saw Joy, her glow at an extremely low dim, with her sobs heard clearly as tears poured down her cheeks. She wore her robes and on her lap was a bowl of ice cream, her spoon was a ice cream scoop. The dream was 'The Phantom of the Opera' classic. (Sadness had her fair share of cries to it whenever it came on and she was on Dream Duty).

Deciding that Joy needed help, Sadness said intentionally in a outspoken voice, "Joy?"

Joy's reaction was that of frozen shock.

Joy paused as she looked to Sadness, caught literally with a scoop of ice cream halfway to her mouth, but she froze like a statue, having been caught red handed.

After a moment passed, Joy began to look down at her bowl, ashamed as she put down the scoop and then paused the movie with her remote.

Sadness said nothing as she entered her room and closed the door. Joy's room was in darkness, the only light was her faint glow and the screen's light.

After getting close to the bed, Sadness had her own sad look at Joy's predicament and said, "So this is what it has come down to."

Joy began to rub her eyes to clean her tears and said in a sad sob, "You don't know the half of it."

Sadness than sat on the corner of the bed, facing Joy like a parent would to a scared child and said, "Then tell me what I don't know."

The first thing Sadness helped Joy with was getting her into a hug and letting her weep against her shoulder. You know, Sadness actually prefers to wear this particular sweater at all times due to not only contrast from her always sad personality, but because the soft cotton acted like a water-resistant shield whenever Sadness cried and her tears went everywhere. ( **You ever wondered how Sadness never got wet from her own tears? Yeah. Me neither.** )

After a long time, Joy and Sadness finally let go, and Joy cleaned her tears and blew her nose with a nearby tissue, which she also kept around. Then came what girls go through, which is when girls just spew out everything that bothers them in that one moment. Basically, Sadness learned that Joy was acting this way because of Surprise, and how she was treating Joy and the others, how things weren't the same, how she was taking Fear away from them and making it harder to protect Riley, and she was sad that she promised Anger to stop their relationship, which led to explaining just how horrible of a person she was and saying how if Fear found out, she would lose their friendship, or what remained of one. The only reason Joy promised Anger to stop it was because she didn't like Surprise and saw how she wasn't right for Fear.

After weeping a little bit more, Sadness starting talking, "Joy. I know that this must be tough for you, but you're wrong. Fear would never stop being your friend, even if you do ruin their relationship. And as Fear's friend, it is your responsibility to tell him what is wrong in his life, especially if you think Surprise isn't right for him. If you say nothing, Surprise is going to stay or take Fear away, making things worse here in Headquarters, the others wouldn't bear it, and you would still be here eating ice cream and crying to drama's."

Joy looked to her with a solemn look as Sadness explain things, realizing that Sadness was right ( **Has always been right, really. When was she ever wrong?** ), and that she needed to do the right thing, even if it was the most horrible thing she could do.

But Joy said, "But I can't just TELL him! I just... don't know what to do..."

Sadness simply placed her small hand on Joy's shoulder and look to Joy's eyes with sympathy, and then said, "Joy, I think you know exactly what to do... You're just afraid of what might happen after..."

While Sadness didn't know still, Joy's greatest fear was to be rejected by Fear ( **Which was ironic if you think about it** ), but despite how she felt, she knew Sadness was still right.

Sadness then grabbed the remote and shut off the screen. Grabbing the slightly melting ice cream from Joy's bed, Sadness got up from the bed and exited the room, tending to put the dish away.

Surprise didn't notice, thankfully. Sadness returned back to Joy's room to see her already in her bed, her sheets up to her shoulder's, her back to the door, her breath steady, and her glow returned to its normal brightness.

Sadness smiled a genuine smile, seeing how her intervention helped Joy with what she needed to do. Closing the door, the room was once again submerged in darkness, with Joy glowing at its center.

* * *

The next day was the day school started, leading a slightly self-conscious Riley to pass through its halls and flow through class.

Joy thought of what Sadness said, and knew that she needed to talk to Fear. But she just couldn't go up to Fear and say, 'Hi Fear! Remember Surprise, the so-called emotion who made everyone's lives difficult and made me super jealous? Well I think she isn't right for you and you should dump her because I liked you long before she ever did.'

Joy mentally face-palmed herself due to how her problems and issues are simply explained in that one segment.

After a while, Joy decided to make her claim of why Surprise didn't like Fear for the same reasons Joy did, but how was she going to pull that off?

Of all the emotions, there was but one emotion she could talk to about this.

Disgust.

When lunch rolled around for Riley, Joy talked to Disgust around the back, where the mind manuals were stored.

Yes, Joy was **Bargaining**.

After explaining to Disgust about how is it that she can gently end their relationship while making sure that Fear didn't get hurt in the process, it ended up with asking how can Joy make her case.

As Joy looked out the window to see the long corridors of Long-Term and the ever-increasing Personality Islands, Disgust joined her and said, "Well... think about it this way... you once accepted Sadness, shocker as it was to us all, and that helped Riley get better. What was it that helped made you think differently about Sadness?"

Joy looked to the memories outside her window, thinking, wondering what was it that made her recognize Sadness.

And then she remembered.

* * *

 _In Joy's darkest hour, being in the Dump, she cried over how she only wanted to make Riley happy, while only hurting Sadness in the process._

 _Joy heard one of her tears hitting the memory of Riley being carried by her team, despite having missed the winning shot._

 _Looking down at the orb, Joy wiped her tears away and picked it up. And with a careful move of her hand on it's surface, the memory rewinded until it changed from a bright yellow memory into a sad blue memory, where Riley was on a tree, alone, crying over how she missed the winning shot. As it played out, Joy saw how Mom and Dad went to comfort Riley, and with another_ _move of her hand, the memory morphed back into a happy one as the team came by to surprise (hehe) Riley and lift her up, cheering her for trying to help the team._

 _It was then that Joy realized that Riley got help because of Sadness, realizing just how important Sadness was to the others and to Riley. And it was then that Joy decided that both she and BingBong needed to get out of the Dump if they have any chance of returning to Headquarters._

* * *

Joy's eye's glazed outside the windows as she remembered this, remembering what made Sadness important to her and the others.

Joy realized that she needed to find out what made her like Fear, besides how Surprise liked Fear.

And so, Joy gave Disgust a tight hug in thanks, her glow a whole lot brighter, and immediately left to the console with the others, leaving behind a confused Disgust.

Only thing was, Joy wasn't going to to console or to the others.

She was going straight to Fear...

...who was on the couch with Surprise. Unbeknownst to the others, she was getting closer and closer to Fear, literally, trying to make him kiss her.

And what made Joy angry was when she saw Fear look extremely uncomfortable with this obviously not ready to go that far.

To Fear, he tried to understand why Surprise liked him, but all she did was flirt and compliment him to get close, never giving him compassionate responses or listen to his fear's and problems, always just trying to get intimate. As the months went on, he tried to defuse the situation on more than one occasion in private, but it only encouraged Surprise to try even harder to make their relationship be solid. Fear knew that this wasn't going anywhere, but he didn't know how to end it.

Until that moment came.

The one moment, **that all of us** , have been waiting for.

"Fear." Joy intentionally interrupted, making Surprise back off and to the relief of Fear, Joy asked, "Can I talk to you alone for a moment?"

Before he could give his answer, Surprise came in and said, "Sorry Joy, but can't you see me and Fear are having a moment here?"

 _Great. Fine, I'll just improvise_. Joy thought, and then said, "You know what, I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that; I need to talk to the both of you."

Both caught off guard by Joy's request, Surprise got up with arms crossed, obviously annoyed, and said, "If it is so important, you could just talk to us about it right here. Obviously the other's should know."

Joy was getting annoyed herself now; Surprise was trying to push her away, making Joy's private matter stay private until Surprise got what she wanted from Fear.

Joy wasn't going to let that happen.

She made a promise, after all.

Joy looked to Surprise in annoyance and said, "Fine, you can listen in." Joy than turned to Fear, who was worried due to the bantering that was between he two emotions. During this, the other emotions heard in and was starting to look at the trio.

Joy said with much sincerity in her voice, "Fear, I don't think Surprise is right for you."

Fear and Surprise were the only ones surprised ( **hehe** ) by Joy's statement.

Fear, off guard by this, said to Joy, "What?"

Joy rolled her eyes and said, "Fear, don't you see that Surprise is distracting you from protecting Riley? Riley even got a mild concussion yesterday because Surprise was mooning over how your antenna changes shape?! Her job is to make sure we do our jobs during Puberty but she's preventing you from doing that because of her! It's contradicting everything we do here!"

Before Fear could fully understand the truth Joy was telling him, Surprise cutted him by saying, "Just what are yo-"

"And you!" Joy pointed at her in accusation like she was in court shouting 'Objection!', and she noticed that she was 'venting' again as she grew more angry, but continued in her blind rage, "Ever since you came here, you've done nothing but make our jobs harder than it has to be! Sure, you've helped with some of the issues that was around here, but you've also caused other problems here, including preventing Fear from doing his job! You've been getting Anger away from the console for too long, for he needs to make Riley angry at certain things for life to be fair and easier for her! Disgust has been getting the same treatment since you want Riley to brace through the embarrassment of her changes during school! You talk to Sadness like she's just another walking Mind Manual to help out whenever its convenient for you! You alone even sometimes cause these changes in Riley like those stupid zits she keeps growing! I am so pissed off at you because you made me feel disgusted of you, self-conscious of myself, angry at how your treating me and the others, you've even made me cry in my room multiple times, making me think about how is it that you could get close Fear before I ever could! You've even made me jealous over how-"

Joy suddenly froze, eyes widened with mouth shut, realizing what she just said.

Surprise looked to Joy with a different definition of surprise ( **I've got to stop making jokes like these!** ) and even some annoyance by what was being told of her.

Slowly, Joy looked to the others. Sadness hid half of her face in the collar of her sweater and had eyes of complete astonishment, realizing why she has been sad this whole time. Disgust's large eyelashes looked so out of place with her expression of wide eyes and her hands covering her mouth, but Joy couldn't tell if it was to hide her shocked look. Anger had the same reaction, but he had his mouth slacked and had a look that said, 'So thats what this was all about.'

Joy then realized that Fear heard the whole thing too. Quickly glancing to Fear, she saw his reaction. It was like his world flipped inside out ( **GOT IT!** ), his body felt numb, his brain not responding, his heart flying at speeds he thought would never be reached. If he didn't breath or get a bag, he was gonna hyperventilate and faint.

Joy likes him.

This whole time, Joy liked him and he didn't know.

Before Joy could say another word, Surprise interrupted the silent moment and said, "Sorry Tinkerbell, but Fear has already made his decisi-"

"STOP IT." Fear finally said when he snapped out of it.

Both emotions looked to him, taken aback by his outburst.

Looking to Joy, Fear said, "How? When?"

Looking to Fear in his questions, Joy felt daggers being brought down by Surprises glare.

Joy smoothly walked away to the console, remembering exactly when.

Joy started putting in a combination into the console, recalling a memory from Riley's past.

A tube came from the roof of Headquarters, and out the tube came the Mountain Dew Kickstarter of 'PuppyMonkeyBaby' playing against the eyes of Riley.

Joy slammed the console and yelled, "That wasn't what I wanted!"

Surprise ( **not her, just the reaction** ) caught the group when the orb was taken away. Joy turned around to see Anger holding the memory, and with a smirk, he said, "This will be a nice collection with the Triple Dent Gum commercial."

Giving a sincere smile, Joy silently thanked Anger and pressed the same combination again. Joy figured that the Mind Workers must of called it the same time she was getting the same memory. She looked to the tube to see another memory come in.

An old Core Memory from Joy's past endeavors.

* * *

Riley suddenly remembered he told friend, Meg, back in Minnesota. She felt sad by the thought of missing her old friend, which she could talk to about anything and have fun at all the horrible things Riley accidentally did.

Then it occurred to her; Meg was probably going through Puberty too. Maybe she could talk to her about it.

As the thought brightened her mood, Riley was now in her next and final class before school was finally over. She can get on her laptop and try to reach Meg again.

* * *

( **Please respect this next part. Inspiration from one of StarNerve's pics and PuccaFanGirl's pics and from all you Starnerve fans and artists out there.**)

Joy pulled the memory from its suspended air duct and held it in her hands.

Looking down, Joy s face reflected over the surface of the memory as the bright blue memory played of Riley and Meg using each others legs to walk down the sidewalk, and Joy almost felt the need to cry.

But instead, she walked over to Fear, who stood up and walked to her, with the others watching, wanting to know what Joy was dying to do.

Joy looked to Fear and said, "Do you remember when we first saw Meg?"

Fear widened his eyes, remembering when and said, "Yeah, but why-"

What came next caught everyone off guard.

Joy placed her hand on top of the memory and the scene began to rewind, to when Riley first saw Meg at her birthday party and was nervous to talk to her, and as the scene changed, so did its color, where it's bright blue color changed into a bright purple.

Fear froze at looking at the memory. Ever since Riley started having new memories, not one of the mixed memories had any trace of Fear's cognitive production in them.

And yet, right here, Joy held one just for him.

Joy gave a smile as she reminisced, "I remember that as soon as Riley turned 4 for her birthday, mom and dad was throwing a neighborhood party. You were in charge due to all of us agreeing that as long as you were in control, Riley would be safe from the strangers. That is, until Riley saw Meg. We thought she was so cool, but you were worried for Riley's safety. We knew that the decisions as up to you, especially when you said if she carried a hidden disease, smelled bad, or maybe one of her orange hairs could hit Riley's eye or get caught in her mouth. But, I saw something that you did. You said that while you kept Riley safe, Riley actually would be better off having a friend, saying how having an ally can help protect Riley from future dangers. You grabbed the controls and made Riley introduce herself in a nervous manner."

Joy giggled in see the memory of Riley trying her best to talk to Meg, and Meg had the somewhat-same reaction. After a while, they actually liked the same things and started telling each other other stuff.

Joy continued, "Then-" But Fear stopped her by placing his hands on the memory. Joy simply watched in silence as she held the orb while Fear slowly glided has hand over the memory's surface, making Riley's memory move to the point where Meg and Riley were once again going down the side walk, helping each other walk with smiles on their faces.

Then something fascinating happened.

Both emotions smiled at the memory at their hands, and as both of their hands touched when Fear tried to help hold the memory with Joy, the memory's color changed into that of yellow and purple, where the entire orb was yellow with a ring of purple encircling part of its circumference. Both emotions looked to each other with smiles.

Joy continued her confession with her heart thumping against her chest, "That moment, when that core emory was made, was when I realized that it should of been you who made that core memory instead of me, because that was the first time I saw you as not a scared emotion, but as a brave one, who faced one of his many fears and conquered it. And it was in that moment that I fell for you."

Fear looked to her with arching eyebrows and had a look that told Joy that he was listening to every word she said.

Joy finished with, "The irony in all that was since you conquered one fear, it gave me a new one; for my greatest fear was for you to reject me, to not accept me and see me as a bossy emotion that wants Riley all to herself, because that was I was back then, a selfish person. When Riley changed and I turned a new leaf, I wanted to confess to you, but I was still scared of your reaction and I thought you still thought of me that way, but then Surprise came and made me jealous of her in every way. Then my greatest fear was losing you to her before I could ever tell you how I truly felt."

Joy removed one of her hands and placed it on Fear's chest, feeling his heart thumping against his chest as well. Joy looked down in shyness and said, "Now that the truth is out, all I want to do is to show you, to prove to you just how much you mean to me, just how much I love you with all of my heart."

Fear couldn't believe this was happening. All this time, Joy noticed him and never interacted with him in any manner in fear of rejection, and her jealousy with Surprise pushed her to confess before it was too late.

Fear thought he was still dreaming while on Dream Duty.

But that changed when he felt Joy's hand against his chest, feeling his nervous and excited heart beat. He could even feel it against his ears.

What she said, of him being confident, made him attractive to her, did he realize what he needed to do.

For as long as the day he realized that Joy was wall he adored, it was the only thing he ever wanted to do.

Fear removed one of his own hands from the memory and began to move a lock of blur hair by tucking it behind her ear...

...before placing his hand behind her head...

...and it was as if Joy could sense it too, what was about to happened...

...and so, both emotions began to close their eyes as they got closer...

...

...and then their lips met.

( **Play Boston's "More Than A Feeling" Solo now.** **Feel free to turn your eyes away from the screen and scream now.** )

It was like fireworks to them. Finally, after so long, after so much jealousy and trepidation (* **smirk*** ), did both emotions feel complete as they conquered their greatest fear and found the most joyful treasure in all of the mind...

Love and **Acceptance** for each other.

Both Joy and Fear let the memory in their hands slip form their grasp as it bounced on the ground and slightly rolled against their feet as their bodies got closer. Joy's lips began to move against Fear's, still feeling the sensation of love coursing through their lips to the rest of their bodies. Joy realized in the moment that Fear loves her too, and she started to glow brighter. Joy's hand that was on Fear's chest, which also felt Fear's even faster heartbeat, went upward until it reached his bow tie, then her fingers wrapped around it and pulled it to bring his lips more to her, deepening the kiss. Her other free hand then went to hold the side of his face, feeling the warmth of his particles. She felt that strange feeling of lifting one leg up, which she did, while her entire body was on fire, burning bright like the sun, feeling true joy for the first time in a long time. Fear's hand, which was behind Joy's head, began to make his fingers dig into her wavy locks and push her face more closer to him, deepening the kiss as well. With his other free hand, Fear wrapped his arm around her waist and brought Joy more closer to him, feeling the intense heat Joy was giving off with her body. Fear felt his antenna create a new shape, one he felt make the shape of a small heart. There was even a little lightning coursing through his antenna.

Neither wanted this moment to stop...

...and no one wanted to...

...except for one.

"Ahem." Surprise intentionally coughed out.

Both emotions opened their eyes, realizing that they were getting intimate in front of the others.

While ruining the moment, both emotions quickly got away from each other, hands behind their backs as a deep blush encircled their faces. Joy's glow returned to normal and Fear's antenna returned to tis normal shape.

Joy dared to look up, only to see Sadness with the most genuine smile Joy has ever seen, and that made her smile in victory. Disgust had a smile on herself, genuinely touched by the moment, but also had a scuffle from Surprise having ruined the moment. Anger had a amused smirk that told her of a 'mission accomplished' on ruining Surprises chances with Fear.

Surprise had an expression that didn't really match that of surprise.

Surprise said, "So Fear, is this what you really want?"

Fear looked to Surprise, expecting her to be angry or something, but she had her arms crossed with one eyebrow up in a questionable manner. Fear looked to Joy, who not only had a blush on her face, but a smile that told him of that intimate moment of her smile against his own, and just how happy that made him feel.

Fear made his decision long ago.

Fear looked to Surprise and said, "Yes. I'm sorry Surprise, but I've never been more sure of anything in my life. Joy will always be the star in my life, and there's no other star out there that could ever change how I think or feel about Joy. Besides," Fear gave a cunning smirk when he says, "everybody needs happiness after all."

Surprise widened her eyes, remembering she said that, and said, "Clever... Fine. I'll go to my room to do some work. By the way, Riley's almost home."

And with that, Surprise left to her room.

( **Was personally expecting a cat fight, but this was way better! XD** )

Fear looked to Joy with a smile, but stopped smiling in seeing Joy with a 'that's-the-sweetest-thing-you've-ever-said-to-me' smile with the corners of her eyes watering.

Before he could ask what was wrong, she leaped into his arms and hugged him tightly. Fear responded the same way and held her close, never wanting to let her go.

Joy's face was against his chest, hearing his heartbeat, crying in happiness over hows she overcame her fears and finally told Fear just how much she means to him.

Speaking of which...

Holding him close, Joy said in a very loving tone, "I love you."

Fear's heart fluttered in hearing her say those words to him. Hugging her close, Fear said back, "I loved you ever since you made you're first core memory, and I never stopped."

Joy let go to see Fear with tears on her cheeks and a loving smile, only to come forward and kiss him on the lips again, and they both closed their eyes once more, enjoying the sensation of one another once more.

The other three emotions watched with genuine smiles and feeling moved by the scene before them.

Disgust finally spoke, "You know... they actually look cute together."

Anger smiled to Disgust and said, "At least we agree on something."

"I'm really happy for them." Sadness said, still smiling at the scene before them.

Outside, HQ was literally glowing more than it usually did, and every Mind Worker saw it as if it was a beacon.

One of them from the Long Term memory corridors that we know said to his coworker, "I told you sending that PuppyMonkeyBaby was going to work!"

The other mind worker rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever." before moving on down the corridor to get rid of more faded memories. ( **XD** )

* * *

As time went on, things changed.

On the OUTSIDE, Riley was soon entering her early teens. New clothes and hobbies came around, and she started developing what the other girls called a 'flat-chest', but it suited her just vince since she was basically a tomboy. Speaking of boys, Jordan, her friend, was hanging out more and more and even hung out at her house to talk or play video games or listen to AC/DC or something.

Mr. Andersen still watched them closely, while Ms. Andersen shook her head in frustration to her husbands meddling.

As it turned out, Megan was also going through puberty too, and she had even more pimples than Riley, but she ha dyer growth spurt earlier and was already developing into her body as well. Both talked of their experiences and by sharing and telling of their frustrations, both girls, especially Riley, was slowly growing into Puberty better.

On the INSIDE, things couldn't literally be any brighter.

Fear and Joy were stuck together like glue. They talked together, worked together, sometimes ate together, and even once participated in playing an instrument with Joy in waking the others up. Turns out, Joy thinks Fear is even more attractive when playing a jazz-tuned Saxophone while wearing a purple fedora. ( **Ideas, ideas...** )

But besides them, Anger and Disgust have actually been getting along better. They've been counting the days since Anger blew the top of his head ( **just like in Hulk, maybe he should do that next halloween... XD** ), but Anger is starting to only become angry at reasonable occasions. Disgust started to make Riley have a sense of style and try new things, but is still careful about how others think of her thanks to puberty. Sadness started reading the newer Mind Manuals and learning of the later changes of Puberty and this time told the others what will happen and when it will happen, just so they brace themselves.

Unfortunately, it is Surprise's job to watch over them as they matured while Riley was in puberty.

And since they were starting to act mature, Surprise was out of the job.

Now I know what you're thinking; She's leaving? HORRAY!

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.

First, she had to move her stuff, then she had to lock and secure eyer old room until her return to Headquarters again.

But, to the dismay of the group, Riley went to sleep before the Train of Thought could come back to pick up Surprise.

And so, Surprise said she would take Dream Duty. Anger said that they should take a picture together with this camera that he got.

Only, it wasn't a camera, but a non-working camera, but they didn't know that.

Anger made them all group together near the center of HQ, but Surprise couldn't fit, so he suggested to use the little memory placer to get on. She unknowingly did and now was a head higher above the group.

When Anger 'clicked' the camera, there was no flash.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Anger intentionally stepped on the foot button to send the memories away to hide the click when he pressed the fake camera.

Before anyone could react, the tube came down and trapped Surprise inside.

Panic set in and Surprise said, "HEY! GUY'S! HELP ME!"

Anger gave a sinister grin while moving his hand sup and down in an evil fashion and said, "You have no idea how long I've planned this."

Surprise looked to Anger with pure hatred and said, "YOU SON OFA-" before she got sucked out of the tube, along with the other memories of the day.

"Is she gonna be alright?" Sadness said worriedly

Anger looked to Joy and said, "When you fell through there, did you get hurt?"

Joy gave Anger a questionable look and said, "No..."

He looked to Sadness and said, "Then she'll be fine."

Joy clapped her hands and said, "Well! I guess I'm doing Dream Duty tonight!"

As the others left, Joy sat down and waited for the memory to play.

That is until, she felt a presence next to her.

Fear was still here, with a smile on his face and two cups of mint tea.

Joy looked to Fear lovingly and said, "Awww, Fear. You didn't have to..."

"I know..." Fear said before handing one of the mugs to her, and then said, "But I wanted too. Besides, I don't want one of us sleeping on the job."

Joy laughed and said, "You're so funny Fear."

After taking a little sips of tea, Joy put her drink down and scooted closer to Fear, then slowly began to touch his lips with her own.

They were still like that, even while the dream played on.

Joy guessed that she should actually be thanking Surprise, just like she said before. After all, Joy once became a green-eyed monster, but now what she had was something more beautiful than anything in the mind.

 _Note to self_ , Joy thought while still kissing Fear with smiles on their faces, _send message tomorrow to thank Surprise for being my green-eyed monster._

 _ **Fin**_

* * *

 **A/N: Just so you know, the story is over, but there are more shorts coming in the future. Don't get the wrong idea! Send your faves and follows. Reviews help too!**

 **Till' next time.**


	7. If I'm Lucky

**A/N: No excuses for being gone for nearly 2 years, but I'm back so let's get this train of thought rolling.**

 **J. Sharp** **: Your words fill me with joy!**

 **Extreme Light 9** **: This is one short where they get together. More will come soon!**

 **StarNerve** **: I am terribly sorry for the long wait! Hopefully this will brighten your day, just like two years ago.**

 **SwanPrincess1121** **: My Lady of the Swans, thank you for your kind words. I promise to try and write more upon your request.**

 **RoseEmbers99** **: It's not 'brilliant', its 'clever'! But I appreciate the compliment all the same!**

 **Guest** **: I love you for loving this story!**

 **Now, let's slow down this Train of Thought for a song…**

* * *

 ** _If I'm Lucky_**

Song Inspired Short By: State Champs

* * *

A few moments ago, the mind was quiet, dark, with only HQ and the long towers holding many memories glowing against the night sky.

A few moments later, the night turned to day, showing that Riley finally awoke to the new morning.

But we aren't going to talk about Riley in this story, no. This story will be focusing around Fear.

He got up from his bed and dressed in his dress pants with a button shirt and sweater, with the included red tie.

He went down to meet the other emotions, by like every morning, his eyes always saw her glow first.

So many times, Fear wanted nothing more than to say, "Good morning Sunshine" but was too cowardly to ever say that to Joy.

Her name, a simple three letter name had other simpler words and meaning to match her name and personality in every way, yet there were so few words to match his.

All throughout the day, Fear saw Joy as bright, beautiful, clever, an graceful.

Fear, to himself, thinks he's just nervous, secluded, scared, and doesn't leave much to have faith in.

All he wants is to be with her, but he always shot that down, thinking that his personal desires will distract her from their work, hurting Riley in the process.

It was the only excuses for everything he wanted to do with Joy, for he held it back for his sake and everyone else's.

Of course, being close to Joy was like enjoying a nice summer day, every day, but by not being with her, Fear kept saying goodbye and goodbye to his love for her, no matter how many times it kept coming back.

He gets thoughts sometimes about being with her, thinking, ' _Is it worth another try?_ '

But again, his fear for her and himself made him push those thoughts away.

Truth be told, Fear has a lot to talk about Joy to anyone who wanted to listen, even if no one cared because they already knew who and what Joy was like.

Fear was trying to find his place in the Mind but he knew it wasn't right to feel this way about another like himself. But he worried for the safety of the mind ever since Joy left HQ, and he wanted to protect her from herself ever since.

Personally, he didn't know what exactly he wants from Joy, but he wanted some more than just a passing smile, one of many she always gave to everyone. But his deep longing for something more made him left hanging on to a thread of false hope.

During break, with Fear laying on one of the couches, did he wonder what it would be like if Joy was not an emotion but a stranger in the mind, but then Fear would of never had a past with her like he had with the others and probably never have fallen for her in the first place.

But as the time flew by and Riley got a day older, Fear continued to learn more and more about Joy.

Joy loved making everyone happy. She also loved twirling in her summer dress, playing games, playing instruments, made a funny scrunch look with her nose when something didn't go her way, like she wanted to sneeze it away, and doesn't like wearing shoes, something about wanting to be one with whatever she touched.

He would imagine times where Joy would always be near him and listen to every word he said, whether or not it was about her or work related, and that she knew exactly why he thought that or why he would say that.

As night came closer, Fear would realize that it was okay for his place to be a distance from her, and that it was alright to feel this way about Joy. Whenever he stayed up or had to do Dream Duty, he would be happy if Joy stuck around a little longer, stayed just a second or two around him like a sun around a planet, wanting nothing more than to be there with her.

When night fell, and the others deputed to sleep, Fear looked back at a smiling Joy, waiting for the next dream to play before her eyes, her body jittering with anticipation and excitement.

It's the little things that made Fear fall in love with her.

At that moment, Fear didn't notice the movie coming up, only focusing on the look of wonder on Joy's face as it started. He didn't know when he started feeling this way, or when it would ever end.

Fear once asked himself, ' _What can I do for Joy?_ '

He decided he was lucky enough to be by her side, and even if he would never tell her how he felt, he would always be there for her, forever.

* * *

 ** _"_** ** _I think it's crazy that the things we have to go through, and the things that we do, just to meet a certain person. Like going to a certain store on a certain day, or talk to a certain person at a certain concert to meet this person, and I feel like that's destiny. 'Cause your suppose to meet that person and that's why you decided to do certain things that day, no matter who you are or where you are, you know there is going to be one person for you." -State Champs "If I'm Lucky" Official Music Video_**

 **You don't have to read this if you don't want to, but I've been struggling to find someone in my life who I could date and confide in, and everyone who has ever cared for me always said that there will come a time when I'll meet that one person who I can love with all my heart. There a lot of people on FanFiction who have yet to meet that one person, so this is dedicated to those who are still looking, still searching; Don't stop looking.**

 **Sorry in advance if its short! (PUN INTENDED) But I wanted to get my writing flowing if I wanted to make my other shorts longer. Hope you enjoy this!**


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